Smoking is a harmful, harmful habit, which affects many Russian citizens. Along with smokers who are consciously destroying their health, innocent people who are nearby and forced to inhale tobacco products are involuntarily affected. But it has long been proven that even second-hand smoke is extremely harmful.
Premature mortality from a number of diseases caused by active and passive smoking, reduced health, working capacity of the population — all this inflicts enormous material and moral damage on the state and society. Though with a noticeable delay, but nevertheless, authorities began to take measures to limit smoking. And now they can reach a whole new level.
The Ministry of Health and Social Development has developed and introduced to the State Duma a bill banning smoking in public places. According to him, smoking will be completely banned in the vast majority of public places, including restaurants, cafes, bars, as well as common areas of residential buildings (in porches, stairwells), at transportation facilities, including long-distance trains. The price of tobacco products will increase significantly, it will be forbidden to sell them in kiosks, stalls. Such products can only be bought at a store with a sales area of at least 50 square meters (in the village at least 25 square meters). Tobacco products cannot be exposed openly, the buyer will have to ask the seller if they are and at what price.
Advertising of tobacco products, including indirect advertising through artwork, will also be severely limited. A separate paragraph of the draft law stipulates that the inclusion, for example, of a smoking scene in a feature film script may be permissible only if it is an integral part of the artistic design and the general environment that the script describes. You must admit that in a film about a war one simply cannot do without such scenes: all soldiers cannot be completely non-smokers.
It is very likely that this bill will be adopted, too much harm from smoking. But as one well-known historical character once said: "In Russia, the strictness of laws is compensated by the non-bindingness of their implementation." There are reasonable questions: will there be strong opposition from the rich and influential tobacco lobby? Who and how fundamentally will monitor compliance with this law? Will it turn into another source of food for our law enforcement agencies, which are already very corrupt? There are no answers yet. It is clear that the struggle of non-smoking citizens for the right to breathe clean, not poisoned air will not be easy. But it is also clear that this cannot go on further: smoking must be fought.
