For years, doctors have been warning that cigarettes and other advertising should be prevented more consistently, in order to protect young people, in particular, from damage. Now Union and SPD want to get ahead with it - and submit legislative plans.
Berlin (dpa) - After a long struggle, the grand coalition wants to introduce further advertising restrictions for smoking to protect health.
"I am glad that together with the Union we can finally introduce a bill for a comprehensive ban on tobacco advertising in the Bundestag," said SPD parliamentary group representative Matthias Miersch of the German Press Agency. The plan is to gradually ban poster advertising from 2022. Electronic cigarettes are also targeted. Further bans are planned for cinema advertising and marketing campaigns. The Bundestag is expected to discuss the legislative plans for the first time on Friday next week (May 29).
Specifically, advertising opportunities are to be phased out in order to protect especially young people from the risks of new offers. First of all, as of January 1, 2022, there should be a ban on advertising on outside surfaces such as billboards or stops for conventional tobacco products. For tobacco heaters it should come into effect from January 1, 2023, and for e-cigarettes from January 1, 2024. From January 1, 2021, cinema advertising for smoking should be taboo for film screenings that are released for under 18-year-olds. It should then also end with the distribution of free samples outside of specialty stores such as music festivals and tobacco products as prizes in competitions.
The joint draft is the second black-red attempt to come up with stricter advertising rules in Germany as well. "The SPD fought for this for a long time," said Miersch. A first attempt at the Union failed in the previous parliamentary term. The cabinet approved plans of the Ministry of Food in 2016. The law was just never passed in the Bundestag. In December 2019, however, the CDU / CSU parliamentary group voted for a position paper that now forms the basis for the coalition's further action.
Tobacco advertising is already banned in radio and television, newspapers and magazines. In combination with this, the new steps would be assessed as effective means of achieving a further reduction in the smoking quota, according to the draft available to the German Press Agency. Because outdoor advertising is generally present. Cinema advertising takes place in a "positive context of entertainment". And free samples could provide entry incentives, especially for young adults.
Interventions in the rights of the tobacco and advertising industries would "be considered justified for the sake of protecting the health of the population", the Union and SPD argue in the draft. Advertising directly at sales outlets remains permitted. And tobacco products are also fundamentally different from other legally advertised products. "Probably no other of these products is equally harmful to health when used as intended." Union parliamentary group leader Gitta Connemann (CDU) had already emphasized in December: "Every year, 120,000 people die an agonizing tobacco death in Germany. Most begin in adolescence, and we want to protect them."
Union and SPD also want to take a look at new products. Therefore, e-cigarettes should be treated equally in the medium term in the advertising bans, as Miersch said. The risks of nicotine-free e-cigarettes have now been clearly proven. "Health protection has priority over economic interests here." It should also be ensured that the ingredients of e-cigarettes are better researched, continuously monitored and banned where necessary.
At the end of last year, the German Medical Association had welcomed the fact that the Union is now making a second attempt possible - but has also criticized the planned transition periods of further years. The tobacco industry has repeatedly warned against "disproportionate interference with fundamental rights" in the freedom to advertise. Decisive for the beginning of smoking especially by minors is the smoking behavior with friends and in the family - not advertising.