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Russia started an all-out advance Monday against smoking as President Vladimir Putin signed a law significantly restricting tobacco smokers.
The law, Protection of Citizens' Health from the Impact of Tobacco Smoke and the Consequences of Tobacco Consumption, was quickly signed after both houses of the Russian parliament approved it earlier this month.
No more tolerance for unhealthy habit
The law, which takes effect on June 1, seriously restricts the number of places allowed for smoking. It also imposes higher taxes and introduces other economic measures that will make the tobacco business less profitable for producers and consumption less affordable for customers.
World Health Organization (WHO) statistics showed that 47.5 percent of men and 10.3 of women in the world smoke. In Russia, these figures are dramatically higher, with up to 70 percent of men and 30 percent of women smoking regularly, and more than 300,000 people dying annually due to smoking-related causes, according to the Health Ministry.
Moscow ratified the WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in June 2008, and the new federal law goes in line with the Russian government's obligations, the ministry said.
"The tobacco-related mortality could be down by 150,000 to 200,000 annually," ministry spokesman Oleg Salagai told reporters.
Seemingly powerful, not fundamental
The smoking issue is highly sensitive in Russia because, according to estimations of Andrey Loskutov, president of the Russian Cigar Union, the number of smokers equals to 40 million with the total population slightly over 140 million.
Loskutov, who admits not to smoking himself, is also head of the All-Russia Movement for Smokers' Rights, an organization founded in July 2012.
Local experts expected that the law would unlikely change much in Russian smokers' daily lives.
Despite the good intentions, the law offers no real alternatives for people who use cigarettes as their only available way to have some pleasure, Loskutov said.
"No administrative measure, however severe, could uproot a physiological call, which smoking is," he said.
Loskutov said the primary task must be not to eliminate the bad habit of adult smokers, but to enlist the teenagers, which the new law offers no such measures.
The majority of teenagers in Russia taste a cigarette the first time at the age of 11 despite many existing restrictions for smoking, the expert said.
"What we need is not prohibitions but a federal program that would motivate people for healthy lifestyle," Loskutov said.
Anatoly Vereshchagin, director for communications in the Japan Tobacco Inc., a transnational tobacco product manufacturer, posed similar opinions.
"The government has issued numerous measures aimed at restricting alcohol," Vereshchagin said. "And so what?"
He mentioned a popular Russian expression - "severity of Russian laws is counter-balanced with slack attitude in their enforcement."
The best way to make Russians healthier is to offer public alternatives to smoking as there is no such thing as "harmless" cigarettes, he said.
