Smoking in playgrounds should be banned this summer

TOBACCO NEWS. Health minister Marisol Touraine will announce at the end of June a decree banning cigarette smoking in public playgrounds. The measure would take effect this summer and is intended to « denormalise the cigarette ».

The cigarette banned from playgrounds

It is first and foremost a « common sense measure », in a way « a way of respecting our children », the minister told the press during a recent visit to a Tabac Info Service centre in Boulogne-Billancourt, in the Hauts-de-Seine.

« It is also a way of respecting children, of getting them used to living in a tobacco-free environment, and we know that good habits lead to good health behaviour later on. »

The announcement came just two days before World No Tobacco Day. The government also launched an information campaign on the cigarette last Monday, under the theme « Use the summer to stop smoking ».

Several trials have been run in the playgrounds of the Parc Montsouris in Paris, but also in provincial towns such as Nice and Auxerre.

Plain packaging in 2016

The measure adds to the anti-tobacco plan put forward by Marisol Touraine as part of her health bill, examined at the end of March in the National Assembly. Among the measures already voted through, plain packaging is due to come into force in 2016.

Are these measures decisive?

The number of smokers fell sharply between 1991 and 1997, and again in 2002-2003. Those periods correspond to governments taking on the tobacco industry head-on by radically increasing taxes on the price of cigarette packs. Since the launch of the first Cancer Plan in 2003, however, the number of smokers has not fallen significantly. France today counts 16 million smokers.