Majority of citizens for: Doctors demand comprehensive advertising ban on smoking

Doctors in Germany urge comprehensive health bans on smoking to protect health. "The protracted discussion on billboard advertising is bleak," said the President of the German Medical Association, Klaus Reinhardt.

"It is incomprehensible that we have still not fully enforced the advertising ban as the last country in the EU." The medical profession is clearly for a general tobacco advertising ban, including electronic cigarettes. "You can not accommodate the industry, smoking is harmful, period."

Germany is the only country in the EU that still allows tobacco companies to advertise their products extensively on billboards and in the cinema. 15 years ago, the Bundestag pledged to the World Health Organization (WHO) to adopt a "comprehensive ban on all forms of tobacco advertising" by 2010 at the latest. So far in vain.

57 percent of Germans support a complete advertising ban

The grand coalition has been negotiating for months on a new run on advertising bans after the Union has given up general opposition. The aim is to expand existing restrictions on billboard advertising and cinemas. The conversation is that they should not only resort to classic tobacco products, but also for e-cigarettes. The SPD wants to enforce this, it also makes the new Federal Drug Commissioner Daniela Ludwig (CSU) strong.

Reinhardt said, "Everyone knows that young people in particular are prone to cliché images of advertising, not everything that is legal has to be advertised." Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) had in June for a ban on advertising pronounced and "an attitude" to the end of the year in prospect. In the meantime, a ban on outdoor advertising from the beginning of 2022 and a ban on cinematographic films for young people since the beginning of 2021 are now being discussed.

Tobacco advertising is already banned on radio and television, newspapers and magazines. In the previous legislature, a start to expand failed. Among other things, the cigarette industry argues that a complete ban would be a disproportionate interference with the freedom to advertise. Decisive for the beginning of the smoke of minors is the smoking behavior in the circle of friends and family.

57 percent of Germans support a complete advertising ban on electric cigarettes and tobacco heaters - according to a representative survey conducted by the University of Düsseldorf in September. Only 11 percent want the products to be advertised.

In the debate on dealing with illegal drugs, the medical president refused to release cannabis. He was "definitely against liberalization," said Reinhardt. "This is a drug that has an addictive potential." There is also research evidence that regular consumption before completion of brain maturation lead to significant impairments such as concentration disorders. "There is no reason to admit another drug."

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Reinhardt promoted the commitment of physicians to treatments with heroin substitutes. The task is not always easy. Framework conditions would be sometimes more difficult, young medical talent missing. "But I think it is very important and necessary to continue to motivate colleagues for substitution treatment," said the president of the medical office. "That's an issue we have to take care of." The drug commissioner Ludwig had called to win also the "next generation of the medical profession" for such offers.