[Intl-tobacco] Norway: Smoking ban in bars, restaurants

[robert.weissman@essentialinformation.org]

Smoking ban in bars, restaurants
The National
June 1, 2004

OSLO: From this week nicotine-craving bar-hoppers and restaurant patrons in
Norway will have to stub out their cigarettes before entering their venue o=
f
choice and, come winter, brave glacial, arctic temperatures each time they
want a puff.

Smokers are expected out in droves today to savor their last day of freely
indulging in their habit in public places. At the stroke of midnight
however, cigarettes will be extinguished across the country, as Norway
becomes the second nation in the world after Ireland to impose a
country-wide ban on smoking in all public places.

Officially, the ban aims to protect employees in restaurants and bars
against the risks of passive smoking brought on by being exposed to
cigarette smoke at work. In practice, the law is also expected to inspire a
large number of Norwegians to swear off their habit, or at least start
planning to do so.

=B3This law was not conceived to reduce smoking, but that is of course a
positive secondary effect,=B2 Norwegian Health Minister Dagfinn Hoeybraaten
said.

According to a recent poll, 25% of habitual smokers and 30% of people who
occasionally indulge said they would quit after June 1. Since the bill was
made public, some 100,000 Norwegians have already kicked their habit,
pushing the number of smokers in the country down from 29 per cent in 2002
to about 26 per cent a year later.

Eirik Flaa, a 34-year-old university student who smokes about 10 cigarettes
a day =8B =B340 when I go out=B2, =8B plans to quit. =B3I=B9ll quit on June=
 1. Each
time I=B9ve quit in the past, I=B9ve relapsed during a night of pub-crawlin=
g.
But now I have the dream opportunity. I will be able to go out without bein=
g
tempted to smoke,=B2 he said.

As the days of the designated smoking section slip into oblivion, and as
even the permanent cloud hanging over many a watering hole disappears,
smokers will have to hit the sidewalk to quench their nicotine need.

To explain the new law, the Norwegian government has launched a humorous
information campaign featuring among other things posters reading: =B3Welco=
me
to Norway. The only thing we smoke here is salmon.=B2 But if humour doesn=
=B9t
work to get the message across, severe sanctions might do the trick. =8B AF=
P