Smoking ban meets resistance in "tolerant" Germany

By Staff
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BERLIN, June 26 (Reuters) When a German magazine ran a story about new efforts to ban public smoking, the reactions of many of its non-smoking readers were fierce -- and surprising.

''I don't want to be deprived of the relaxed company of smokers in restaurants and bars,'' wrote David Harnasch of Freiburg in a letter to Der Spiegel weekly. ''If my clothes stink of smoke, I can wash them -- where exactly is the problem?'' Yvonne Deim from Munich wrote: ''Sitting in a smoke-filled room for a few hours bothers me less than it would if smokers were forced to get up every few minutes to go smoke outside.'' Governments across Europe are cracking down on smoking in public places. But resistance to new limits is strong in Germany, where the right to smoke became a cherished mark of tolerance and freedom after World War Two.

Polls show a majority of the population and one in two non-smokers opposed a proposed ban on smoking in restaurants and bars.

Some politicians have said the proposals are too draconian, and Germany's powerful cigarette, restaurant and hotel lobbies are working to ensure they never see the light of day.

Der Spiegel made clear where it stood by putting a picture of a broken cigarette on its cover alongside the title ''Smoking -- The End of Tolerance''.

Lother Binding, a member of the parliament and a former smoker, stoked the debate by pressing for a new law that would ban smoking in all public places.

Binding, 56, told Reuters he felt compelled to press for stricter laws after reading a study from the Heidelberg-based German Cancer Research Centre, which laid out in stark terms the dangers of ''passive smoking'' or second-hand smoke.

''That convinced me that the current law simply doesn't go far enough,'' he said, referring to a two-year-old measure to phase in no-smoking zones in hotels and restaurants.

EUROPEAN TREND Nearly one in three German adults smokes regularly and close to 140,000 Germans die every year from tobacco-related illnesses -- far more than from traffic accidents, alcohol, drugs and AIDS combined.

Some studies estimate that 3,000-4,000 deaths per year can be attributed to passive smoking.

Binding's proposed ban is designed to cut those numbers and bring German law into line with many of its European partners.

Ireland imposed the world's first nationwide public smoking ban in 2004. Italy, Sweden, Scotland, Norway and Spain have followed suit in varying degrees. Belgium, Britain, Northern Ireland and Portugal are expected to introduce tight new rules next year.

But Binding faces a particularly daunting challenge in Germany, where tobacco taxes bring in over 14 billion euros (17.6 billion dollars) annually and where the political class is dominated by men and women of the ''1968 generation'' who fondly associate smoking with notions of freedom and risk.

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