Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.wpost From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Europe Without Smokers= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 92 04:45:22 EST Message-ID: <6.1992Nov3.044522@AmeriCast.com> Europe Without Smokers= WILL EUROPE be recognizable without those thick clouds of cigarette smoke that currently do more than practically anything else to remind Americans they aren't at home? Judging from recent parliamentary moves to ban or limit smoking in some of the coun- tries where it has till now been intrinsic to public culture, Eu- ropeans may soon be facing the kind of incremental behavior modification that has made the smoke-filled room on these shores an anachronism. France this weekend passed a nationwide ordinance banning smoking in all enclosed public areas, requiring that separate smoking areas be set aside in factories, offices, bars and - probably the greatest wrench - restaurants and cafes. Fines can reach $250 for violators. The action passed the French parli- ament despite fierce controversy and despite the failure, less than a year ago, of an attempt by the mayor of Paris to push through a similar edict for the city alone. What has changed? Pleasantly surprised antismoking advocates here say the movement seems to be incremental, but one likely source of momentum is the staggering health costs that are begin- ning to be identified in a country where - as in France - an es- timated 40 percent of the population smokes. Smaller, sphere-by- sphere prohibitions are gradually taking hold too - many European national carriers, for instance, now ban smoking on short hops - and though no national carrier except Air Canada has a flat international ban, the international civil aviation authority adopted a resolution last summer that required all its member na- tions to push for such a regulation by July 1996. (Though this may seem unhurried, a staffer who tracks smoking issues at the Advocacy Institute notes, "We were afraid they would just say 'as soon as possible,' which could mean 50 years.") More astounding yet, the Italian government on Friday proposed a ban patterned closely on the French one, with special attention to public transport, restaurants, discos, art galleries and pub- lic gathering places. It was the second year running that such legislation had been sent to parliament; the Associated Press re- ports, though, that the previous proposal went nowhere because parliament dissolved itself in April for elections. Of course, considering the upheaval such a ban would produce not only in Italy itself but in the world's cherished notions of the place, dissolving the parliament may not seem too drastic a preventive measure. But it probably won't hold back this world- wide tide, at least not for long. 02:05 11-03C9999----- Copyright 1992, The Washington Post. This story is from the Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar- chived or redistributed. For more information, send-email to American Cybercasting Cor- poration (usa@AmeriCast.COM)