New comprehensive plan against smoking 2024-2028, which maintains the spirit of the one drawn up for 2021-2025 and which, for unexpressed political reasons, was left to rot in a drawer of the Ministry of Health. Now he is recovering and his draft will be studied tomorrow in the Public Health commission of the Interterritorial Council, and everything indicates that it will continue on its way until the meeting between the minister, Mónica García, and the counselors of the branch.
But, unlike the previous text (which was never debated), which clearly focused on the reform of the tobacco law to expand smoke-free spaces, now it tiptoes more over that point (fewer details about what spaces). On the other hand, it is more emphatic about the need to comply with the current law, which prohibits smoking in all closed spaces, while in open spaces it is not allowed on terraces if they are half covered, in playgrounds and in school environments and health areas, among others.
In fact, they repeatedly propose increasing “inspection and monitoring activities for compliance with legislation in smoke-free spaces, mainly in places of special protection (health, educational and social centers).” And, of course, on the semi-covered terraces, where people smoke even if only one wall is open.
Does that mean there won’t be new smoke-free spaces? The draft plan clearly establishes “the legislative expansion of smoke-free and aerosol-free spaces for electronic cigarettes and related products in certain outdoor community and social environments, and in certain spaces in the private sphere, especially those with the presence of minors.” ”. Without saying it, it targets open terraces, outdoor sports centers and vehicles when a minor is traveling. Also to the bus shelters. But the text does not make it explicit, in part, because the PP councilors do not want more smoke-free spaces, at least, not with regard to the restaurant terraces.
Another of the objectives of the plan, perhaps the most important, is to prevent minors from taking up smoking, and, to this end, as scientific and medical societies – especially those gathered in the National Committee for the Prevention of Smoking – have been claiming for months. (CNPT)–, that vapers be equated with traditional cigarettes and heated tobacco devices (recently equal to tobacco), because that is the gateway for children under 10 and 12 years of age to smoke. These are electronic cigarettes without tobacco, but may or may not contain nicotine.
The plan establishes “regulating the sale and consumption of tobacco-related products (with and without nicotine)”, as well as “equalizing by law the advertising, promotion and sponsorship of related products and new products to that existing for tobacco products.” . This will prevent them from continuing to be sold in supermarkets or candy stores and it will be monitored to ensure that YouTubers or Instagrammers advertise them or expose themselves to them on social networks, the CNPT points out.
For experts, vapers are the “Trojan horse” of the tobacco industry to attract new smokers and, “far from reducing risks, they multiply them because in more than 60% of cases, dual consumption of an electronic cigarette and combustion tobacco.” “They are not harmless and they attract smokers at increasingly younger ages. If the average age of first contact with conventional tobacco is 14 years, with vapes and electronic cigarettes we are seeing how there are boys and girls who have their first contact with nicotine at the age of 11 or even earlier,” they point out.
The plan also foresees an increase in taxes on tobacco products, with the clear objective of increasing their price. A measure, analyzed and contemplated a thousand times, but that never finds the protection of the Ministry of Finance. And the expense caused by tobacco (due to the multiple diseases it causes) is three times higher than what is collected, says the Secretary of State for Health, Javier Padilla.