Norway has joined a growing list of countries by implementing national antismoking measures. In April, the Norwegian parliament voted to outlaw smoking in bars and restaurants beginning in spring 2004. In Canada, restrictions vary across the country because they are not a federal responsibility.
“We have 1 message: employees in restaurants and bars should have the same protection against passive smoking as other employees,” says Ellen Juul Andersen of the Norwegian Medical Association. Andersen, vice-president of Tobacco-Free, helped lead the lobbying drive.
“We can see that it can be a little bit difficult for some bars to become smoke-free, but … there will be educational programs,” Andersen told CMAJ.
Bans on smoking in public places have been — or will be — implemented in Ireland (January 2002), Zimbabwe (October 2002), Thailand and Pakistan (November 2002), Romania (December 2002), Iran (sometime in 2003), and Uganda and Sweden (2004).
Greece, where 45% of the adult population smokes, banned smoking in many public places last September. Fines were introduced in December for cafés, bars and restaurants in which owners failed to allocate at least half the space to nonsmokers.
In April, a Labour MP in the United Kingdom introduced a private member's bill to ban smoking in cafés and restaurants. It will receive second reading in July. And Bhutan, a country of 2.1 million people nestled between India and China, aims to become the first nation to ban tobacco use entirely. According Health Minister Sangay Ngedup, “The great saint who brought us Buddhism … said smoking was bad and no follower of Lord Buddha should smoke. He may have been referring to opium, but we feel very comfortable extending his concerns to tobacco.” As of January, 18 of Bhutan's 20 districts had banned tobacco sales.
Japan implemented a smoking ban in sections of central Tokyo in November 2002, but it was a response to the number of people being burned on the crowded streets, not to concerns about second-hand smoke. — Barbara Sibbald, CMAJ