The law n. 3 of 16 January 2003 which, with article 51, instituted for the first time in Italy the ban on smoking in enclosed spaces open to the public, a law which met strong resistance at its inception but which then changed the customs of the country and partly also social etiquette.
The turnaround
Proposed and strongly supported by the then Minister of Health Girolamo Sirchia, the law, which fully entered into force on 10 January 2005, has contributed in two decades to significantly reduce the number of smokers in Italy. A trend which, however, has recently reversed: if between 2003 and 2020 the share of smokers in the population over 15 had dropped from 33% to 22%, between 2020 and 2022 there was a jump in forward which brought the share to 24.2%. In absolute terms, this is 800,000 smokers more than the 11.6 million of two years ago.
Sirchia: law defended by citizens
“Law 3/2003 was a great battle, which the citizens understood, so much so that over the years they have defended the provision from the continuous attacks by the multinationals of smoking more than politics has done”, the former minister comments to Ansa Sirchia. “People – he adds – have understood that it is a measure that does not look at someone’s specific interests, as often happens, but at those of the population, their health and their lives”.
Growing I use heated tobacco
For Sirchia, however, an extra effort would be needed today by the institutions to “carry forward the anti-smoking agenda”. Also in light of a further challenge that has emerged in recent years: that of the products that “multinationals have invented to differentiate themselves and re-conquer the market, such as electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products”. According to data released by the Higher Institute of Health (ISS) in May 2022, on the occasion of World Tobacco Day, the share of Italians who smoke cigarettes with heated tobacco has grown from 1.1% in 2019 to 3.3 % in 2022, with more than one in three people (36.6%) considering them less harmful than traditional cigarettes.
Over 93,000 deaths per year attributable to smoking
E-cig users have also increased in recent years, going from 1.7% in 2019 to the current 2.4%. For the former health minister, one of the first signals that politics should give to confirm its commitment to the fight against smoking could be precisely that of “extending the rules on the ban on smoking in closed places to include these new products as well as exteriors of the premises which are declared “outdoors” but which, between canopies and awnings, have very little open air». It is estimated (Ministry of Health data May 2022) that in Italy over 93,000 deaths per year are attributable to smoking (20.6% of the total of all deaths among men and 7.9% of the total of all deaths among women) with direct and indirect costs of over 26 billion euros.