Spain’s effort to discourage smoking by banning it in the workplace and increasing taxes on cigarettes is not having quite the effect that the government intended.
Since the law went into effect on 1 January Spaniards have duly stopped smoking in offices, schools, and hospitals and on public transport and can now be seen lighting up in huddles on the pavements outside.
But a tax increase designed to make cigarettes more expensive and to discourage smoking has instead started a price war between companies determined to keep their place in the Spanish market.
Philip Morris, which makes Marlboro cigarettes, and Spain’s top manufacturer, Altadis, have both lowered prices sharply.
The price of a packet of Marlboro, historically seen as an expensive prestige brand, has dropped by about 15&;, from €2.75 (£1.89; $3.30) to €2.35. The price of cheaper brands, such as Altadis’s Fortuna, has since been slashed by almost 30&; to €1.85 euros a packet.
Most recently Japan Tobacco International, which makes Camel and Winston, reduced the price of packets of the two brands to €2 and €1.85 respectively.
Instead of taxing the tobacco companies out of the market, Spain, where smoking is still widely seen as fashionable, is now flooded with cut price cigarettes, which are more tempting than ever, particularly to young people.
Already some 30&; of Spaniards smoke, and the habit is the country’s largest killer: Spain has some 50 000 smoking related deaths a year.
But unlike in countries such as Ireland and Italy, where the public has largely embraced a total ban on smoking in public places, in Spain there is greater public tolerance and sympathy for people who wish to be free to light up in public.
Under the 1 January law, bars and restaurants with over 100 m2 of floor space must create designated non&;smoking areas. But smaller places have the choice of whether to ban smoking or not. And—to the dismay of the health minister, Elena Salgado—most of these have opted to be a safe haven for smokers forced out of their offices.
“This is happening more slowly than we would like and certainly less than we expected,” said Ms Salgado in a recent television interview.
The minister warned that if the situation continues the government will “go a step farther, like other countries have,” and introduce a total ban.
She also said the tobacco companies’ price war shows that they have a wide profit margin, but she trusted the country’s finance ministry to come up with measures “to remedy this situation.”
But the Club de Fumadores por la Tolerancia (Association of Smokers for Tolerance), which campaigns for people’s right to smoke in public if they want to, said the health minister had “already gone too far in her campaign of persecution of smokers.”
In a statement the organisation said, “Before, the minister said she was tolerant and that the law was not tough because it left people to choose. Now that the restaurant industry has not chosen the option the minister wanted … they &;the government&; have gone into reverse.”
It said that 72&; of Spanish workers would support smoking rooms in offices rather than a blanket ban.
The Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine said that about 300 000 Spaniards have consulted a doctor since the beginning of January in an attempt to stop smoking.