French government to crack down on smoking, drinking (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

French government to crack down on smoking, drinking
by Jon Henley / London Observer
Date: Sunday, 6/6/99

PARIS -- Everyone's favorite caricature of the Frenchman -- baguette under
arm, beret on head, Gauloise clamped to lower lip and glass of vin rouge
in hand -- may be about to change forever.

In a step no previous government has dared to take, the Socialist-led
coalition of Prime Minister Lionel Jospin looks almost certain to place
alcohol and tobacco in the same category as marijuana and heroin -- as
dangerous drugs.

Sources at the Health Ministry say that despite fierce and voluble
industry opposition, Jospin has decided to include drinking and smoking in
the judgment of a Cabinet task force charged with combating drug abuse.
Doing so will release vast sums of government money to suppress the
consumption of two legal but harmful substances that between them cause
more than 120,000 French deaths a year.

The decision follows the publication of two governmental reports that
revealed how damaging France's favorite recreational activities are to the
nation's health. Some 5 million French men and women can be classified as
excessive drinkers and 2 million as alcoholics.

"The figures are frightening," said Claude Got, a senior health official.
"What we've shown is that there is no correlation whatsoever between the
legal status of a substance and its danger to public health. Tobacco
causes maybe 10,000 more deaths a year than cannabis, and alcohol in
excess is as harmful as heroin."

'Way behind'  

The French are Europe's heaviest drinkers, consuming the equivalent of
3.09 gallons of pure alcohol a year -- two-thirds in the form of wine.

Alcohol is responsible for about 25 percent of all hospital admissions and
some 50,000 deaths a year, costing the state an estimated $1.2 billion
annually.

"Quite simply, alcohol is a molecule which, like any other hard drug,
creates dependence, with catastrophic consequences," said Got. "But
drinking wine is such an important part of French culture, we're way
behind other countries in fighting abuse. The budgets for anti-alcohol
campaigns are minimal and we've bowed to industry pressure over, for
example, advertising."

The government's tough new stance has outraged the powerful wine industry,
as well as hoteliers and restaurateurs.

Some 20,000 vintners, distillers, wine waiters and bar owners signed a
petition to Jospin last month saying that classifying alcohol as a drug
"will put at great risk more than 3 million jobs in this country," not to
mention the $1.6 billion in tax revenues collected annually by the state.

Fernand Mischler, president of the Master Chefs' Association and
proprietor of a two-star Michelin restaurant in Alsace, said drug-taking
"cannot possibly be compared to a convivial meal washed down with a few
glasses of good wine." France was a wine-producing country, he said, "and
our neighbors envy us for that."

But Jospin's mind seems to be made up -- especially as far as tobacco is
concerned.

Heavy smokers  

While sales of France's well-known cigarette brands, including Gauloises
and Gitanes, have plummeted as smokers have switched to international
brands, surveys show the French are still a nation of deeply committed
puffers. Some 34 percent smoke, including 60 percent of
18-to-20-year-olds, just over a quarter of pregnant women and one of every
three doctors. Tobacco-related diseases kill 70,000 French people a year,
and if present trends continue, that figure will rise to 125,000 by 2025.

Declaring the statistics "a public health catastrophe and a national
disgrace," Health Minister Bernard Kouchner last month unveiled an arsenal
of anti-tobacco measures.

Beginning this autumn, anti-smoking products such as nicotine chewing gum
and patches will be available over the counter rather than by prescription
and will be free to low-income groups. Some 150 new "tobacco dependency"
clinics are to be established in hospitals, and 3,000 doctors nationwide
are to be given special training in anti-tobacco counseling.

A public information program will be unleashed, targeting pregnant women
and teenage girls. Mothers-to-be will undergo a 40-minute session with a
doctor who will effectively order them to stop smoking, while doctors
prescribing the birth-control pill will have to give their patients a
similar talking-to.

Kouchner, who has already encouraged three of his fellow Cabinet
colleagues to quit smoking, aims to cut the number of French smokers by 5
percent a year over the next three years, with more substantial reductions
for pregnant women and teenagers.