The Ministry of Health wants to step forward in the expansion of smoke -free spaces. In the draft of the new anti -tabaco law, not only prohibits smoking on terraces or commercial vehicles, as its headline, Mónica García, had advanced, but also expands the veto for cigarettes (conventional or electronic) 15 meters from the access of public buildings, health centers, educational centers or playgrounds, among others, and suppresses smokers clubs.
The new measures, which will have to be ratified by a majority in Congress before they enter into force, are collected in the last draft of the draft law that modifies Law 28/2005, to which EFE has had access and that have been confirmed to El País by sources of health.
The norm introduces a regulation for new ways of consuming nicotine, such as those, which were now in a legal limbo. It also equates electronic cigarettes (or vapers) to tobacco and will be prohibited in the same areas where you cannot smoke.
One of the main novelties that this text brings, after the measures that Minón García has already been revealed since he assumed the commitment to harden the regulations, is the prohibition of the commercialization of electronic cigarettes to use and throw. These are devices provided with a liquid with or without nicotine, ready for consumption and disposable after use, as defined by the document, which justifies their prohibition in which “they have a higher prevalence among adolescents and young people” because they find it “especially attractive”, especially for their flavors.
To stop the consumption in this collective, health restricts the sale and retail supply of all these products to the watertightness or vending machines “located in establishments that have the appropriate administrative authorizations.”
At the same time, in a royal decree in process, it also prohibits the flavors of electronic cigarettes, which can only have the aroma of tobacco, to avoid that children begin with these substances, which are becoming the entrance door to tobacco.
Smoke -free areas
As for the new smoke -free zones, work vehicles consider work center and specify that it cannot be smoked in outdoor or cutlery spaces included in the enclosures of health centers or in universities and adult training centers.
Nor can it be in sports facilities, pools for collective use and enclosures where public shows are developed, both interior and exterior, or in bars and restaurants, either inside or outside the terraces. Not even in smokers clubs, which are suppressed. Neither in leisure or “recreation” centers, except in outdoor spaces, as well as party rooms, game or public use establishments, regardless of whether or not there are minor; In bars, restaurants and other commercial restoration establishments, both indoors and outdoors, or in children’s parks and
Packaging and promotion
The industry will have twelve months since the law is approved in Parliament to introduce the neutral packaging. Both interior and outside will have a unique color, which the manufacturer will choose between the two that are realized in a ministerial order. This also affects the paper and filters. It is about avoiding trade marketing incentives, so that brands are only seen through aseptic letters, without logos.
This measure is precisely one of those missing from Spain to be among the four countries with the most control measures to smoking, 25 countries have already implemented the generic packaging.
Finally, the text puts advertising and sponsorship, which will be prohibited “in all media and supports, including vending machines and services of the information society”, with the exception of publications or presentations destined exclusively to professionals involved in tobacco trade and devices.
If the prevalence of consumption was reduced only between 1 % and 2 %, health calculates a public health savings between (derived from the reduction of cardiovascular diseases, cancer or COPD) and a reduction in indirect costs due to losses of labor productivity, absences and premature mortality of more than 2,000 million euros per year from 10 years of application.
