The Swiss are voting today to decide whether to ban the advertising of tobacco products and, in another referendum, all animal testing.
The polls open at 10 but most people have already voted by mail.
According to the latest polls, the ban on advertising cigarettes and other products is very likely to pass.
Although opponents of the initiative, including the government and Philip Morris International - the largest tobacco company in the world, which, like British American Tobacco and Japan Tobacco, are based in Switzerland and helped fund the campaign for the 'no' - they claim it is "extreme".
Instead, it has little chance of passing the ban on all animal tests.
Parties, parliament and government are opposed, warning that such a ban would have disastrous consequences for medical research.
Swiss authorities insist that the country already has one of the strictest laws in the world for animal testing.
Since the 1980s, the number of guinea pigs used in the country has decreased from nearly two million per year to around 560,000.
Among the other issues on which the Swiss will have to decide today, a package of measures in favor of the media, voted by parliament and challenged by a referendum committee.
According to the latest polls, the outcome of the vote is uncertain with in favor and against practically equal: 49% of "no" and 46% of "yes".
The package of 150 million francs (around 142 million euros) provides for an extension of the federal contribution to cover part of the costs arising from the transport of newspapers and associative press publications, support for online media and contributions to broadcasters radio and television stations operating at regional and local level.
The government, aligned in favor of the law,
points out that more than 70 newspapers have disappeared since 2003 and that the Confederation is already making home distribution of subscription newspapers cheaper by assuming part of the transport costs.
With the new law, we want to extend this facility also to newspapers with a large circulation.
As in many other countries, also in Switzerland, the media sector is suffering from a decline in subscriptions and advertising revenues that migrate to large Internet platforms.