Strasbourg is experimenting with a “tobacco-free space” in front of the Neufeld elementary and nursery school.
Accompanied by a mechanism for mediation and raising awareness of the dangers of smoking among students and parents of students, the system should soon be extended to all schools in the city.
An initiative that complements the tobacco-free labeled spaces already in place in 123 parks and playgrounds in the city.
"Deconstruct the positive representations around tobacco, those which would consist in saying that "smoking is cool, that it is a symbol of freedom".
Well no !
It harms health, it also pollutes.
“This is how Jeanne Barseghian, mayor of Strasbourg, presented this Thursday a new measure, an experiment, of a “tobacco-free space”, in front of the elementary and nursery school of Neufeld in Strasbourg.
This is the first establishment where this measure has been taken by the municipal team.
It should be extended, “very soon”, but according to a timetable that has not yet been defined, to all schools in the European capital.
Objective: to protect the youngest from passive smoking, but also to better “protect these younger generations from entering into smoking”.
A first "assessment will be made by the end of the school year", details Alexandre Feltz, doctor, addictologist and deputy mayor in charge of public and environmental health.
The elected official, graphic in hand, underlines the importance of these preventive measures in the face of smoking which is increasing again, since confinement, during which “many people have started or started smoking again”.
Citing as an example a country like Canada where "these tobacco-free spaces exist, much stricter and with wider perimeters", he is convinced, as all the studies show, that "the disappearance of tobacco in public spaces is essential so that cigarettes disappear from children's mental imagery".
And to achieve this, the tobacco-free area is identified by a display in front of the school entrances, accompanied by the distribution of a flyer.
A team of young mediators, from the faculties of medicine or pharmacy, also dialogue with the parents when entering and leaving class.
A tobacco specialist will also intervene in CM2 class while the city's school health professionals and extracurricular officials will relay prevention messages.
Everyone agree
The measure is taken at the “strong request of parents”, underlines the mayor, formulated in 2019. Confirmation this morning at the gates of the establishment of this consent: impossible for us to find parents of students who disagree with this experiment.
“Passive smoking even more dangerous for toddlers”, “risk of burns”, “bad message to smoke in front of them”… The arguments heard at the start of the school year would have pleased the League against Cancer, whose president from Bas-Rhin, Gilbert Schneider, had made the trip for the occasion.
At most, the grievances heard on Thursday related to other expectations, such as that of obtaining additional teachers, the end of dog excrement around the school, keeping dogs on a leash, or even banning them, during hours comings and goings, stopping the removal of hiking trails in the forest of Illkirch-Graffenstaden... On the smoking side, smokers, occasional or not, approve of this measure, even "if there is no need for everything regulate", because "it goes without saying not to smoke when there are children".
A device that finally makes sense in Strasbourg, a pioneering city in terms of smoking prevention.
It should be remembered that it was the first in 2018 to generalize the ban on smoking in all parks and playgrounds in the city while carrying out in situ awareness-raising and "tobacco mediation" actions.
Today in Strasbourg, 123 spaces are labeled “tobacco-free spaces”.
Health
Cannabis may be more harmful to the lungs than tobacco, study finds
Health
Avoidable cancers: François Braun wants to reduce them from 150,000 to 60,000 per year by 2040
tobacco-free month
Tobacco
Cancer
Jeanne Barseghian
School
Education
Prevention
Strasbourg
Great East
Health
Video