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Smoking Bans Enhance World Travel Experience

By Dan Schlossberg
ConsumerAffairs.com

January 10, 2007

• Report Links Tobacco Marketing and Movies With Youth Smoking •Study Finds Big Tobacco Exploiting Ad Ban Loophole • Do Tobacco Firms Cut Menthol to Hook Young Smokers? • Wegmans, DeCicco Markets Ditch Cigarettes • Secondhand Smoke Linked To Hospital Admissions • Anti-Smoking Drug Chantix Linked to Seizures, Heart Problems, Diabetes • Congress Moves To Tighten Tobacco Controls • Toddlers Affected Most By Secondhand Smoke at Home • Tobacco 'Innovations' Aimed at Younger Smokers • Heart Attacks Drop After Smoking Ban in Italy • Physician Highlights Hazards of Bartending • Anti-Smoking Suit Targets Restaurants • Smoking Linked to Sleep Disturbances • States Challenge R.J. Reynolds Cigarette Ads • Smokers Cost Taxpayers $10 Billion • Secondhand Smoke a Serious Health Risk • Would Women Rather Smoke Than Get Fat? • Kroger Agrees to Curb Tobacco Sales to Minors • No More Free Smokes in California • Second-Hand Smoke Tied to Lower Test Scores • Secondhand Smoke Bad for Pets • Researchers Link Smoking To Dementia • Smoking Turns On Genes -- Permanently • Bill Targets Online Cigarette Sellers • UK Tries Nicotine Patches on Pregnant Smokers • More Toxins Found in Smokers' Children --- • More about Smoking & Health

The worldwide trend is unmistakable: Smoking is becoming verboten even in places where it was once popular.

Add France to the list. The traditional laissez-faire attitude of the French will be challenged to the hilt when smoking is outlawed in most public places this year and in bars, nightclubs, restaurants, and public areas of hotels in 2008 (hotel guestrooms are somehow exempt).

The addition of France swells to 16 the numbers of countries that have effectively cancelled public smoking. The list also Ireland, Italy, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, Bhutan, and Uganda, with Finland, Iceland, and Northern Ireland joining the bandwagon this year.

In the United States, smoking is persona non grata in 14 states and thousands of municipalities. Marriott and Westin hotels have also gone the smokefree route.

That's great news for travelers, according to John Banzhaf III, executive director of chief counsel for a Washington-based group named Action on Smoking and Health. The initials conveniently spell ASH.

During the past year, the independent lobbying group saved taxpayers money by triggering a crackdown against online cigarette sales and saved nonsmokers money by convincing Medicare to charge smokers more and nonsmokers less. The group also helped kill a smokers' rights bill and helped ban cigarette advertising in several European countries.

ASH has also been promoting smokefree environments for children, protecting nonsmokers from drifting and recirculating smoke, and pushing smokefree laws in cities, states, and foreign countries.

Travelers can protect themselves, according to Banzhaf. He suggests they do the following:

• Verify in advance that hotel rooms are and public hotel areas are smokefree

• If taking a tour, insist upon nonsmoking rooms and smokefree restaurants

• Do a "sniffing tour" of hotel rooms before accepting keys, since changes are easier and less aggravating before all the paperwork is completed.

According to Banzhaf, the list of places where smoking is restricted remains woefully incomplete. "No one is safe, no matter where they live," he said. "That's especially true if they travel -- they are playing Russian roulette with their lungs and lives."

He noted that no state protects its citizens from smoke drifting into their homes, no state protects children from secondhand smoke in homes and cars, and no state protects nonsmokers in all areas outdoors. Such protections are necessary, he said, in light of the U.S. Surgeon General's recent report that there is no safe "lower level of exposure" from secondhand tobacco smoke.

Even brief exposure to such smoke can trigger a fatal heart attack in nonsmokers, Banzhaf said.

He added that ASH also hopes for better enforcement of The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, a treaty signed by member countries in the World Health Organization two years ago.

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