THE European Commission (EC) on Tuesday recommended that member states extend smoke-free zones to outdoor leisure areas “where children are likely to gather”, such as service establishments, in particular bar and restaurant terraces, swimming pools and amusement parks.
“When it comes to risk factors for cancer and many other diseases, such as heart disease, stroke and lung disease, tobacco tops the list“, said European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides at a press conference.
In a statement, the EC stressed that it seeks to “better protect the EU population, especially children and young people“and also recommends extending the smoking ban to open places such as public playgrounds, outdoor spaces belonging to health and education centres, public buildings and transport stops and stations.
In this revision of the Council’s recommendation on smoke-free environments published in 2009Brussels is also advising European Union (EU) member states to “extend policies” from smoke-free environments to heated tobacco products (HTPs) and e-cigarettes, which Brussels says are increasingly affecting very young users.
“These products have significantly increased their market share, often being marketed with misleading claims about their supposed safety or usefulness as smoking cessation tools. However, their potential harmful effects are serious, their users can become addicted to nicotine and often end up consuming both traditional tobacco and emerging products,” the EC stresses.
The Community Executive stresses that its recommendations come just after the World Health Organization (WHO) highlighted the negative effects of exposure to passive emissions of these emerging products, which include major respiratory and cardiovascular problems.
The Commission urges member countries to strengthen international cooperation to maximise the impact of measures taken across the EU. Brussels will provide a direct grant of €16 million from the programme EU4Health and 80 million euros of the Horizon programme aimed at strengthening the fight against tobacco and nicotine, as well as the prevention of addictions, the EC “will furthermore develop a set of prevention tools to support the protection of the health of children and young people”.
The Commission recalls that health policy is the responsibility of the Member States, “they are invited to implement these recommendations through their own policies, as they deem appropriate, that is to say taking into account their national circumstances and needs”. These suggestions are part of the European “Beating Cancer” plan which sets the objective of achieving a tobacco-free generation by 2040, by which date, according to this plan, less than 5% of the population should consume tobacco.
Tobacco is the leading risk factor for cancer and accounts for more than a quarter of deaths from the disease in EU, Iceland and Norway are attributed to smoking. According to the EC, thanks to smoke-free environments, mortality figures and other health indicators such as heart attacks in the general population have improved and respiratory health has improved.
