German Politicians Call for Public Smoking Ban

Depending upon what side of the cigarette you’re on, Germany can either be a nicotine nirvana, or a smoke-filled purgatory. That’s because unlike in the United States and many European countries, German smokers still have free reign in many public spaces.

Whereas smokers in New York or California face an absolute ban on smoking in bars, restaurants and elsewhere, ending smoking in offices or designating non-smoking areas in restaurants is a fairly new phenomenon to Germany, a country where roughly a third of the population puffs away daily.

But Germany’s reputation as a cigarette-friendly nation could soon change if a new anti-smoking drive takes off. Marion Caspers-Merk, deputy health minister in charge of the German government’s drug policy, on Sunday reportedly said she wanted to soon take the first steps to better protect non-smokers.

“Not smoking in public has to become what’s considered normal,” she told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper in an interview. “It has to become the standard that restaurants have non-smoking areas.”

Any new anti-smoking initiative would come on the heels of the government’s recent decision to hike the price of a pack of cigarettes by a euro over the next couple of years to help pay for health care costs. Taken together, many German smokers could be forgiven for thinking the ruling center-left coalition of Social Democrats and Greens were planning a coming anti-smoking crusade in Germany.

Vending machines on the corner

But any truly Draconian non-smoking measures like those in the United States are likely a long way off in Germany, a country which ostensibly requires people to be 16 to buy tobacco, yet has freely available cigarette vending machines outdoors on nearly every corner of any major city.

Still, Capers-Merk call to further restrict smoking – including making hospitals, schools and government buildings completely smoke free – was positively received by some politicians from the conservative opposition. Bavarian Health Minister Eberhard Sinner told the paper smoking was a “war against good health, especially that of our children.”

“My goal is society a free from smoke as possible. That’s what I’d like to convince people. If persuasion doesn’t work than one has to think about an appropriate ban,” Sinner said.

Other politicians made no secret that they saw the strict no smoking policies of the United States as the example Germany needed to follow. Werner Lensing, a Christian Democrat member of the North-Rhine Westphalia state parliament, urged for legislation modelled on American laws forbidding smoking in public places.

“I’m for a total smoking ban everywhere where non-smokers can’t avoid cigarette smoke – namely pubs and also in office buildings,” Lensing told Bild.

The president of a private non-smoker initiative Ekkehard Schulz said it was no longer reasonable to expect people to put up with secondhand smoke in German restaurants.

“The Americans are pioneers in this area. The laws really need to be drastically tightened up over here too,” Schulz said.