World No Tobacco Day: New report calls for more and better smoke-free areas

3.46.06pm BST (GMT +0100) Tue 27th May 2003

Stronger and more coordinated efforts must be made across Europe to provide non-smokers with the protection they need from environmental tobacco smoke according to a report presented today in the European Parliament.

Liz Lynne MEP, anti-smoking campaigner and long term asthma sufferer, today introduced the findings of the new report on protection for non-smokers in European restaurants and bars:

"World No Tobacco Day on 31 May offers us the perfect opportunity to exchange ideas on how best to increase protection for non-smokers in public places across Europe and to establish sound models of best-practice."

The report, drawn up by the European Network for Smoking Prevention (ENSP) and based on the results of a survey accross five EU countries, makes recommendations to maximise the effectiveness of legislation to protect people from environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) in countries where it already exists, and calls for appropriate legislation in countries such as Germany where none is currently in place.

"It is not simply a matter of guaranteeing protection for sufferers of respiratory illnesses such as asthma," said Liz. "Despite a recent BMJ report which claims that passive smoking is not dangerous, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an arm of the World Health Organisation, has pronounced that inhaling second hand cigarette smoke causes a number of forms of cancer, including lung cancer."

"We must ensure that individuals are free to enter restaurants and public places without risk of damaging their health, or even of having to suffer the irritation to eyes, nose and throat that smoke brings.

"The evidence from some EU countries also suggests that, far from damaging business, in a vast majority of cases properly enforced non-smoking sections do not result in a loss of customers and can even increase business."