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SMOKING

Paris enforces €68 fines for tossing cigarettes

Smokers in Paris should think twice about nonchalantly tossing away that cigarette butt from now on. From Thursday the cost of a fine rose to €68. But will it make the city cleaner?

Published: 1 October 2015 08:25 CEST
Paris enforces €68 fines for tossing cigarettes
A giant cigarette butt at the Gare du Lyon in Paris. Photo: AFP
From Thursday October 1st dropping a cigarette butt on the streets of Paris could cost smokers the price of around ten packets of cigarettes.
 
From now one anyone caught tossing away the fag end after smoking the cigarette will be forced to pay €68, almost double the previous €35 fine.
 
Paris Town Hall’s cleanliness tsar Mao Peninou is taking the fight against cigarette butts seriously – and it's no wonder. There are 350 tonnes of mégots, as they are known in French, collected each year in Paris.
 
“These fines aims to give Parisians and visitors a sense of responsibility so that they also become actors in keeping the city cleant,” said Peninou.
 
The problem of cigarette butts was made considerably worse ever since a smoking ban in public places was introduced back in 2008, forcing many more people to begin puffing outdoors.
 
 
The same fine of €68 will now also be handed out to those who do not clean up their dog's mess.

In the mean time, the Town Hall will roll out 30,000 new ashtray bins to encourage smokers to dispose of their cigarettes properly. 
 
Peninou added that Paris's current “green brigade” of 100 staff tasked with enforcing the rules would be expanded throughout the year. 
 
In the run up to the new fines coming into force a team of officials alerted the public by handing fake penalties to smokers.
 
The Town Hall has also appealed to cafes and bars around the city to help them raise awareness of the new measure.
 
“Solutions exist and must be implemented,” said Peninou. “For example, the installation of mobile ashtrays front of the buildings, placing ashtrays on tables in outdoor areas where smoking is allowed.”
 
Smokers in the ninth arrondissement of Paris, meanwhile, have been offered recycling bins for their cigarettes, in a separate initiative to encourage a cleaner city. Those behind the move, a US company called Terracycle, say that a cigarette takes 12 years to naturally degrade and that just one is enough to contaminate 500 litres of water.
 
In Paris, penalties for public littering are rarely enforced – with just over 25,000 fines given out last year – mostly for people who left their rubbish bins out too long.
 
(Photo: AFP)

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HEALTH

How Spain could stamp out smoking

A fifth of Spain's population smokes on a daily basis. With such high numbers, here's how the country's pulmonologists propose to get smokers to quit.

Published: 5 November 2021 17:52 CET
Spain plans to get people to quit smoking
How Spain plans to get people to stop smoking. Photo: Khalil MAZRAAWI / AFP

For many outsiders, Spain is a nation of smokers. 

The stats from Spain’s Ministry of Health show that 23.3 percent of men smoke every day in Spain, compared with 16.4 percent of women.

For both males and females, the highest number of smokers are aged between 25 and 34, meaning that it’s the younger population who are smoking slightly more than the older generations. 

Spain’s pulmonologists are now pushing for the country’s tobacco laws to be tightened, claiming that reform is needed after the last legislation was approved a decade ago.

READ ALSO: Spain warns against smoking and vaping in public to avoid Covid infections

Why is smoking such a problem in Spain and what is being done about it?

The latest stats from the Spanish Ministry of Health show that lung cancer, often caused by smoking, is the third most frequently diagnosed cancer in Spain, with 29,549 cases diagnosed so far in 2021.

Given these high figures Spain’s Spanish Society of Pulmonology and Thoracic Surgery (SEPAR) has proposed five measures to help get people to stop smoking.

SEPAR points out that every time anti-smoking legislation is reformed and things for smokers made more difficult, the prevalence of smoking decreases.  

Smoking on terraces was banned in some regions during the pandemic. Photo: CRISTINA QUICLER / AFP
  • Price of tobacco to rise in 2022

The first point on their list is to raise the price of tobacco, which must cover all forms, from cigarettes to cigars, through to rolling tobacco, and electronic cigarettes.  

This first measure may soon become a reality as the Spanish government has already predicted that the price of tobacco will rise in 2022, after several years of stagnation.  

It is expected that tobacco will be responsible for almost a third of all special taxes received in 2022, equating to €21.8 billion.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “cheap tobacco” in Spain guarantees “a percentage of smokers above 30 percent”.

In Spain, the price of a pack of tobacco is around €5, which is much cheaper than in other countries. In Australia for example, a pack of tobacco costs around €22, and in the United Kingdom and France, each pack of tobacco costs around €12.4 and €10.5, respectively.

According to Dr. Carlos A. Jiménez Ruiz, pulmonologist and president of the society, the current anti-smoking law has “some deficiencies” that need to be addressed in order to develop legislation that is more effective and efficient, especially with regard to the prevention of tobacco consumption in young people, but also in helping smokers to stop smoking and in protecting the health of non-smokers. 

READ ALSO – Maps: Which beaches in Spain have banned smoking?

Besides increasing the cost of tobacco SEPAR proposes four other measures to get Spain to quit smoking. These include:

  • Banning the consumption of tobacco in public spaces, even outdoors
    During the pandemic, several regions approved a regulation to prohibit smoking on terraces. SEPAR proposes that smoking be prohibited not only in spaces such as terraces but also in sports stadiums, beaches, parks and bullrings, and that fines should be imposed for those who do not comply.

  • Establish generic packaging
    SEPAR also wants Spain to introduce generic packaging, which means no logos and images of the tobacco companies. This measure has also proven to lower the sales of tobacco in countries where it has been implemented, such as Australia and New Zealand. According to the latest statistics from the Australian National Drug Strategy Household Survey around 11.6 percent of adults in Australia smoke daily. 

  • The regulation of other smoking devices
    Despite the fact that all products that burn tobacco such as cigarettes are already regulated, SEPAR believes that it is also necessary to regulate the sale, consumption and advertising of electronic cigarettes. This is because e-cigarettes have become particularly popular among young people. 

  • Promote help for those seeking to quit smoking
    The last proposal is the creation and development of special units in public health departments to help people to stop smoking and to put more funds towards these programmes. 

How does Spain compare with other European countries when it comes to smoking?

According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), while Spain does have a high number of smokers there are still several European countries that have more. The European countries with the highest number of smokers are Greece, Bulgaria and Hungary.

The latest European survey from 2020 shows that 42 percent of Greeks claim to be smokers, which is only slightly above Spain. 

On the other side, the European countries with the lowest number of smokers are mainly Nordic countries, such as Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Norway.

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