Impact of Ireland's smoking ban debated eight years on

Описание: (18 Sep 2012) Ireland was the first country in the world to introduce a total ban on smoking in all workplaces places in 2004, prompting many other countries to follow suit.
Today, while the health and economic benefits of the smoking ban are a matter of some debate in Ireland, it remains popular among smokers and non-smokers alike.

Ireland's anti-smoking laws are among the strictest in the world.
Taxes on tobacco are very high (around nine euros for a pack of 20 cigarettes), advertising is totally banned and smoking in all workplaces has been prohibited since 2004.
Introduced to help protect workers from the damaging effects of second-hand smoke, the ban includes restaurants as well as the traditional Irish pub.
But despite fears that it would lead to conflicts in pubs, customers at the Goggins bar in Monkstown, County Dublin, are expressing strong support for the ban.
"I was opposed to the ban in the beginning because I thought it would lead to strife and problems in pubs between people who smoked and who didn't smoke. But I actually believe, I'm amazed to be proved wrong and I'm delighted to be proved wrong because there's a live and let live attitude in the pubs," says one drinker.
Another adds: "You can go into a pub now and you can enjoy a few drinks and there's no smell of smoke, which is dreadful. It's in your clothes and all the whole lot. It's the best thing the Irish government did and it was them that started it, to be the first off."
When the smoking ban came in, rural pubs were considered to be under the greatest threat, as smokers living in distant areas might choose to smoke and drink at home.
Despite some drop off in business at the outset of the smoking ban, support for the measure remains strong among many rural publicans.
"When they started first there was a bit of a drop off in business, but since then I think it don't make any difference - maybe five percent of a difference. But it's much cleaner, less cleaning on the pub, less working. I think people like it," says publican Larry Whelan.
Whatever the effect on Ireland's pub trade, supporters of the smoking ban say that the general health gains are worth the price.
But opponents say that smokers are choosing instead to stay at home and that there is no proof of a real health dividend for the Irish population as a whole.
Indeed recent figures released by the Irish government show that the numbers of smokers has remained steady at around 29 percent, with more young women in particular taking up the habit.
John Malloy is a spokesperson for the smokers lobby group Forest Eireann, which is part funded by the tobacco industry.
"The tobacco control 'industry' if you like, makes great play of the wonderful health achievements but there's been no proof of that, there's been no measurement of it. It doesn't appear to have made any health difference at all to the Irish population at large," he says.
"What it has done though, is start a witch-hunt on smokers.. they're attempting to de-normalise us, we're very bad people. They're inviting the rest of society to look down their noses at us."
Dr. Ross Morgan is a lung disease specialist at Dublin's Beaumont Hospital and is chairman of the prominent anti-smoking lobby group ASH Ireland (Action on Smoking and Health).
"There's been a number of good studies now looking at the change in environmental tobacco smoke so that's the air pollution in bars and in restaurants before and after the introduction of the smoke ban, which have shown significant reduction from toxic type levels to normal levels," he says.

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