No smoking in outdoor places if there are minors and pregnant women nearby.
No smoking rooms in enclosed spaces and a crackdown on e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products.
Exactly 20 years after the law that sanctioned the first bans for blondes, a new turning point on smoking could arrive in Italy.
This was announced by the Minister of Health Orazio Schillaci, who could link his name to an update of the
"Given the worrying spread of unhealthy lifestyles", Health Minister Orazio Schillaci said in a hearing before the Social Affairs Commission of the Chamber, "I intend to address the fight against smoking, which is still the main cause of preventable morbidity and mortality in Italy" to "achieve the goal of the European Plan against Cancer 2021 to create a 'tobacco-free generation' by 2040".
The measures will have to take into account "the growing diffusion of new products, such as electronic cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products, and the ever-growing evidence on possible harmful effects on health".
As recalled by the Higher Institute of Health (ISS), in fact, "smoking is not only responsible for lung cancer, but it is also the main risk factor for respiratory and cardiovascular diseases" so much so that, according to the World Organization for Healthcare (WHO), by 2030 it will cause 8 million deaths a year in the world.
The hypotheses being studied were announced by Schillaci himself: "I intend to propose the updating and expansion of Law 3/2003 to extend the smoking ban to other outdoor places in the presence of minors and pregnant women; eliminate the possibility to equip smoking rooms in enclosed spaces; extend the ban also to the emissions of new products such as electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products; extend the ban on advertising to new products with nicotine".
From this point of view, he continued "the transposition by 23 July 2023 of the European Commission directive on the elimination of certain exemptions concerning heated tobacco products is also necessary and strategic", to "allow its entry into force from 23 October 2023"
The objective of the minister, who is also full professor of Nuclear Medicine at the University of Tor Vergata, is that "the multiple interests related to tobacco products, which involve the economic departments, do not prevail over the protection of health".
This is what Girolamo Sirchia must have thought more or less when, on 16 January 2003, he obtained the approval of the law which introduced a ban on smoking in public places in Italy.
Initially met with controversy, after its entry into force on January 10, 2005, the law found an unexpected success in the population.
In 10 years, as certified by Istat, it led to a 5% reduction in heart attack hospitalizations each year and a 25% decrease in tobacco product sales.
The battle against smoking, however, was far from over.
In 2015, the Legislative Decree was issued which implemented the European Directive 2014/40: in the package of the then minister Beatrice Lorenzin, there were, among other things, the obligation to take photos of smoke damage on the packages together with the toll-free number for help quit (800.554.088), a ban on additives that make tobacco more attractive, and the abolition of 10-packs.
Yet, whether it's blondes or loose tobacco, still in 2022, according to ISS data, almost one in 4 Italians (24% of the population) was a smoker, and the trend is recovering after years of decline.
While the increase is constant for people, generally very young, who smoke cigarettes with heated tobacco: 3.3% in 2022 compared to 1.1% in 2019.