Efe
Updated Tuesday, March 12, 2024-09:59
The Secretary of State for
Health
, Javier Padilla, explained this Monday that the new spaces in which
smoking
and vaping will be prohibited will be defined in the future reform of the anti-smoking law, although some "may be on the table" such as
terraces or the canopies.
This is how Padilla responded to the media when asked about the "Comprehensive Tobacco Prevention and Control Plan (PIT) 2024-2027" that will serve as the basis for future legislation and that the Ministry plans to present to the communities next Thursday at the Public Health Commission for approval.
According to the preliminary draft of the plan, to which EFE has had access, Health advocates for the
legislative expansion
of spaces without tobacco smoke and without aerosols for electronic cigarettes and related products such as vapers in "certain community and social environments outdoors and in certain private spaces, especially those with the presence of minors".
In these private spaces, he specifies, we must "emphasize
awareness about smoking
in private spaces when living with someone else (whether at home, in the car, etc.) and especially in the case of boys and girls and people with mobility problems." health".
"The specific specification of which smoke spaces are will have to be included in the legislative reform, not in the comprehensive plan," said the number two of Health, who has advanced, however, that "there are
a few that may be above of the table
, such as those already known, such as the terraces of bars or the shelters of public transport".
But we will have to see "what is being done in other countries and see what could be done here. The specification will already be developed in the legislative text."
Regarding the
increase in the cost of tobacco
through the increase in the tax that the plan also contemplates, Padilla has stressed that "the current taxes can be greatly improved", but that with this "we must be very aware that any measure related to taxes is competition sole and exclusive of the Ministry of Finance".
And the department headed by María Jesús Montero will find the hand of Health "not only to use fiscal policy as a tool to improve the health of the population, but also to do it technically in a better way."
For Health, raising the price of a pack is essential to "get out of this anomaly in which Spain has anomalously low prices" and is "a proven effective measure to reduce smoking, to reduce mortality, income and derived disease burden".