Stop the cigarettes in outdoor places if there are minors o pregnant women nearby, farewell to his smokers in the indoor venues and a crackdown on the electronic cigarettes and the products of the heated tobacco. In the year in which the twentieth anniversary of the approval of the Sirchia law who introduced the first bans for “blondes”, the Minister of Health Horace Schillaci he illustrated his idea for one new squeeze on smoking, a sort of “update” of the rules wanted by Girolamo Sirchiaa doctor like his successor who launched epochal norms for the habits of smokers.
“Given the worrying spread of unhealthy lifestyles – said the minister in a hearing in Social Affairs Commission of the Chamber – I intend to address the fight against smoking, which is still the main cause of morbidity e preventable mortality in Italy”. The goal, he explained, is to achieve the goals of European plan against cancer 2021 who would like a “tobacco-free generation by 2040”. The new measures, underlined Schillaci, will have to take into account “the growing diffusion of new productssuch as electronic cigarettes and products of the smokeless tobaccoand the growing number of evidences on possible harmful effects for health“. as it recalls theHigher Institute of Healthin fact, “smoking is not responsible for the only lung cancerbut it is also the main one risk factor for respiratory diseases and cardiovascular” so that, according to the World Health Organization, by 2030 will cause 8 million dead the year in the world.
The hypothesis to the study illustrated by Schillaci revolve around the “updating” and “expansion” of the law 3/2003. In particular, said the minister, it is a question of extending “the ban on smoking to other outdoor places in the presence of minors and pregnant women”, of “eliminating the possibility of equipping smoking rooms in closed rooms” and of “extending the prohibition also at releases of new products such as e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products. In addition to all this, the minister also imagines “extending the ban on advertising to new products with nicotine”. The objective of the minister, who is also full professor of Nuclear Medicine at theUniversity of Tor Vergatais that “i multiple interests related to tobacco products, involving i economic ministriesdo not prevail over health protection”.
The Sirchia law approved in January 2003 and entered into full force on January 10, 2005 was initially greeted by controversy but over time found a unexpected success in the population. In ten years, as certified by Stateled to the reduction of heart attack hospitalizations by 5% each year and at decrease of 25% of the sales of tobacco products. The battle against smoking, however, was far from over. In the 2015was issued on legislative decree which transposed a European directive to discourage smoking and, among the innovations wanted by the then minister Beatrice Lorenzinthe requirement was introduced photo of smoke damage on packages joined to green number to help quit (800.554.088), as well as the prohibition of additives that make tobacco more attractive and the abolition of “packs of 10”.