A strong advertisement from France: “You are young, you’re healthy, join ToxicCorp and become a ‘replacement smoker’! Every year, 270.000 courageous and motivated youngsters are willing to become addicted to nicotine, and absorb formol, cyanide and more than 50 carcinogenic substances in order to sustain our profits. Like them, take this opportunity and replace one of our deceased faithful smokers. Your future is in your hands, don’t hesitate.
Tobacco kills 1 in 2 smokers. The tobacco industry counts on you to replace them!”
Why am I so looking forward to the smoking ban in Belgian restaurants? Let’s compile some reactions from abroad, when the smoking ban started there:
Argentina:
This weekend I remember leaving AcaBar, a restaurant/bar in Palermo, with some friends and I realized how much different the experience was from just 5 months ago when I went there with this same group of friends. The last time, the place was so smoke-filled that you could hardly see across from one end to the other. I remembered that after I got home, I had to strip off all my clothes and take a shower just to get the smell of smoke out of my hair. expat-argentina.blogspot.com
Then it happened. The impossible. Buenos Aires went smoke free. Signs are up all over the capital. “Buenos Aires libre de humo.” (Buenos Aires free of smoke) Restaurants posted smaller versions, versions of the law. All over the milongas, bars, and restaurants, signs prohibiting smoking were posted.
On Oct 3 the local paper Clarin had a story of how 250 police were hired to patrol the city to make sure the law was being followed. Only 2 patrons in a bar in Recoleta were cited. Over all people and places were observing the law. I think many of us were shocked. tangospam.typepad.com
En fumant dans la meme piece que lui, j’augmente de 25% le risque qu’il meurre d’un cancer de poumon. Ce n’est pas rien. Mais je ne le sais pas encore. Moi non plus.
En fumant a cote du serveur, on augmente de 50% le risque qu’il ait une crise cardiaque. Mais on ne le sait pas encore.
Quand je fume a cote de mes enfants, j’augmente de 70% le risque qu’ils aient une infection pulmonaire. C’est enorme. Mais je ne le sais pas encore. Moi non plus.
(on screen) C’etait hier. Aujourd’hui vous connaissez les risques du tabagisme passif.
What I love about it is just when you think it couldn’t possibly get any worse, it does. By a lot. And it does this more than once, building to the most glorious mess I’ve ever heard. I smile every time I hear it.
from thesneeze.com via defectiveyeti.com and themorningnews.org
Bad habits never go down without a fight: the Belgian horeca, probably lobbied by Big Tobacco, has created a website comprendo.be where they explain what is and is not allowed under the new 2007 smoking ban. They propose a 4-label system, of which three indicate that smoking is still allowed under one or other form. The used colors are such that “no smoke ban at all” is green, and “smoking completely banned” is red. That is a dirty psychological trick: it gives the restaurant owners the impression they are turning people down with the red sign, and are being more hospitable with the green one. Continue reading ‘Smokeban countdown: 7 days to go’
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