The Belgian Parliament postpones smoking ban until 2014: Are y'all from Kentucky?

The Belgian Parliament, which acknowledges the need for a comprehensive smoking ban, has decided that they've not quite had enough death, dying, and monetary expenditures for lung cancer and heart disease. I'm not certain if they feel their physicians aren't working enough hours or if their mortuaries don't have enough business. Either way, they aren't budging until 2014. We are talking about four more years of death, dying, and suffering and the preventable expenditure of billions of healthcare dollars. We are talking about the lethal negligence of a governing body that has willfully failed to protect its citizens. It changes the indictment from the metaphorical negligent homicide of 5000 individuals and the maiming of 10 000 others, rationalized as ignorance, to now one of premeditation. It is an embarrassment to the EU just as our lack of a comprehensive smoking ban is an embarrassment to the United States of America.
 
I visited beautiful Belgium many years ago. I remember thinking it seemed like I had never left Kentucky when I traveled the lush green countryside. I admit I'm geographically challenged. I once flew to Sweden and spent the first few miles in the back of the car craning my head so I could watch the Alps come into view. I knew I might be in the wrong country, so I didn't dare ask the driver any questions until I could phone my brother who knows everything. "The wrong 'S' country," he smirked and hung up. When I learned the ESC meeting would be in Vienna, I rushed to purchase a book on the Italian language. As I walked out the door, I thought "wait a minute . . . that's Venice. I'm going to Vienna, and that's in Austria." I ran back in the store and bought some German tapes. I didn't know the Nile was in Egypt until I was in my twenties. To beat it all, my mom taught geography. I'm a complete embarrassment to her in that regard. I much preferred dissecting frogs than spinning a globe, though I completely love traveling it. Now, I swear it. Belgium is a lot like Kentucky and mom, I shall prove "I'm" correct.
 
The parallels are uncanny:

• Belgians are dying of lung cancer. (Kentucky: check.)
• Belgians are dying of heart disease. (Kentucky: check.)
• Belgians love to smoke. (Kentucky: check, check.)
• Belgian government officials are worried about the business owner's right to choose. (Kentucky: check.)
• Belgian officials are afraid to engage in aggressive education campaigns that rapidly prepare their population for a smoking ban. (Kentucky: check.) 
• Belgian legislators don't believe that success begets success, and they don't understand that a ban is the gift that keeps on giving and works immediately. (Kentucky: check.)
• Belgian officials have caved to the vocal, inconsiderate and uncaring minority. (80% of EU citizens favor a smoking ban. The majority of Kentuckians favor a ban: check.)

Perhaps you Belgian officials aren't really to blame. I believe it was Columbus who threw away a mysterious Cuban gift of dried leaves but ate the fruit given to him instead. Later, a couple of his sailors saw some natives "drinking" smoke from those same leaves. One of them, Rodrigo de Xerez, tried it and was hooked immediately. When the Spanish Inquisitors saw the smoke billowing from his lips and nostrils, they imprisoned him for seven years in his native country for appearing to be satanic. A monk traveling with Columbus, Ramon Pame, wrote of how Indians inhaled the smoke from a Y-shaped pipe, and smoking spread like wild fire in Europe while poor Xerez was serving his time. Although we can blame someone else besides the Belgians for the birth of smoking in the EU, they still deserve the blame for not following the courage of some Europeans and Americans to curb it.
 
I was in Ireland the first week of its historic ban in 2004. No one whined, cried, or threw a fit. They simply stepped outside their pub or restaurant and quietly lit up their fags. We returned there in 2008 and were astounded at how few smokers we saw, period. Scotland and England then followed suit some years later. They stood on the shoulders of places like the city of San Luis Obispo, CA, the first city in the world to ban smoking in 1990. Bhutan, the tiny Himalayan city, is the first and only "totally tobacco-free" nation. You can't smoke it or sell it there, and they celebrated banning it in 2004 with a huge "carton" bonfire. New York, "the city that never sleeps," banned it several years ago and now enjoys the fruit of its labor; a drop in teen smoking by over 50%. Lexington, KY went smoke-free, and their asthma admission rates dropped by 27% in three months and now boast a $22-million savings in healthcare expenditures over five years.
 
Belgium, you disappoint me. I always brag about how progressive the Europeans are in general, especially in the areas of medication development, primary PCI, nutrition, and exercise habits. Your stalling on the smoking ban issue has completely disillusioned me. Maybe we could make this work for us, though. Perhaps we could combine our governments to cut down on salaries and do a little simultaneous tourist promotion for your country and my state of Kentucky, since we are so much alike. I'll sow a few bluegrass seeds along your countryside and bring over some ashtrays with cardinals, our state bird, on them. We can sell some of your luscious chocolate! We'll transplant a few guys smoking from their trach's from our state to Bruges and bring over a few horses.
 
Now, all I have to do is to teach you to say "y'all." Y'all like to smoke just like we do, and, unfortunately, y'all die just like we do and y'all harm your nonsmoking citizens at an alarming rate, just like we do . . . and y'all have the same missed opportunity to change all of that

Unfortunately, until you ban public smoking in Belgium, y'all will have the same guilty conscience that we do in Kentucky as well.

See:

Journey to a smoke-free city

Smoking bans reduce the risk of acute coronary events: IOM report

Smoking bans cut heart attacks by up to a quarter

Nationwide smoking ban cuts incidence of acute coronary syndrome in nonsmokers

MI reduction after smoking ban is sustained over long term

Reduced hospitalizations for ACS following smoking ban in Scotland

Smoke-free policies bring health benefits

Coronary events drop in Italy after smoking ban

Irish smoking ban reduced the rate of admissions for acute coronary syndromes

Acute MI events reduced dramatically following the implementation of public smoking ban

Your comments

	The Belgian Parliament postpones smoking ban until 2014: Are y'all from Kentucky?
	# 1 of 5	December 19, 2009 05:51 (EST)
	Dave Atherton	With regards to Ireland when their smoking ban came in, it did nothing to stop smoking. Infact since 2004 smoking rates have risen from 29% of the adult population to 33%. A THIRD of the Irish population now smokes, a new survey reveals.  A survey of 4,082 people this summer revealed that 33pc of the Irish population had taken up or continued to smoke.  It is the highest smoking rate recorded here in the past 11 years, according to the EU's 'HELP -- For A Life Without Tobacco' campaign. Despite hikes in tobacco tax, the smoking ban and a new law against the public display of cigarettes for sale, the number of smokers has steadily risen since 2007 when 29pc of the population smoked. The survey, which was conducted between March and September, revealed the largest group of smokers -- 45pc -- is aged between 16 and 30. Men form the majority of smokers at 38pc, compared with women at 28pc." The same is true  for the United Kingdom ""The damning publication from the NHS Information Centre (the state health system) states there was  “no significant difference” in the number of people who smoked before and  after the law changed in 2007." Ohio's smoking ban has seen an increase in adult smoking of 3%. "The state of Ohio, after passing similar public smoking legislation in 2006 saw its smoking prevalence increase by 3 percent since 2007. In France, tobacco consumption for 2008 equalled that of 2004 despite a smoking ban." It seems that smokers treat the mommy state by smoking more. http://www.independent.ie/national-news/smoking-rate-soars-up-to-one-third-despite-ban-1923543.html http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23750503-nhs-ban-made-no-difference-to-the-number-of-smokers.do http://www.freedom2choose.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=4834#p116844
	# 2 of 5	January 6, 2010 12:44 (EST)
	Carolyn Thomas	I've been to Belgium because my baby brother and his family have lived in Brussels for many years.  True enough: you do see Belgians puffing directly in front of the few 'No Smoking' signs they have.  Brussels is a city of thousands of corner pubs and bars, some centuries old, that have a powerful lobbying influence on behalf of those smoke-filled bars and their owners. As a Canadian whose city (Victoria) has been ordered smoke-free in all public places (and in fact our smoking ban now even includes outdoor restaurant patios as well) I've seen initial screaming and yelling from bar owners who warned that they would all go out of business because their smoking patrons would stay home rather than have to butt out while watching the hockey game on their big screen TVs. While it is true that the vast majority of Canadians are non-smokers, the majority of pub patrons DO smoke.  What has happened to those bar owners and their disastrous predictions of business failure?  Bars and pubs are as busy as ever. Sales are up, not down. Our quintessential Canadian coffee shop, Tim Hortons (formerly THE place to go for coffee and a smoke) still boast long lineups all day long. The only difference: non-smokers can now sit at Tim's or in their local neighbourhood pub in smoke-free heaven. I suspect that Belgium, like Kentucky, will scream and yell at first.  But remember in the 'good ole days' when we booked airline travel and were asked: "Smoking or non-smoking section?" Same outrage then at the thought of not being able to smoke during an entire international flight!  Somehow, smokers have survived. Carolyn Thomas http://www.ethicalnag.org
	# 3 of 5	January 12, 2010 08:27 (EST)
	Melissa	Dave, The main goal of every single smoking ordinance is to protect those who really don't want to die from 2nd hand smoke exposure.  Your point proves what we'd said all along about the freedom to smoke!!! We can use your argument that you are free not only to keep smoking, but continue to hook your friends and family as well.  Heck, the tobacco industry should get behind smoking ordinances then!!! it's good for business for them!! Here's the point:  Even if  1/3 of the Irish population now smoke, or that Ohio's adult smoking prevalence is up 3%, or that banning public smoking does nothing for smoking prevalence...................smoke exposure in the work place for both employees and patrons ALWAYS drops by around 100% :  PRICELESS!!!!!!  : )   Melissa
	# 4 of 5	June 7, 2010 02:52 (EDT)
	p rose	Very much doubt this will get past any medical area but here goes. My husband is a smoker and I am not. We spend about 3k to 4k per annum in Spain as we visit regularly from the U.K. Like many other english people (british if you prefer) we come to Spain to escape the Draconian smoking bans over here. We refuse to be dictated to! Every single government, newspaper and medical association in every country continues to lie about the wonderful health of non-smokers and how the smoking ban has not affected business. They will continue to lie because they wish to keep benefiting from the huge pharmaceutical companies. We are losing 40 pubs in the U.K. a week STILL – after 3 years. Neither are people giving up smoking - they just stay at home! If Spain brings in the same ban then we will no longer visit. Simple. Multiply us by thousands! And deserve to lose all your revenue from the holiday makers in future! Good for Belgium.  It's closer and cheaper!
	# 5 of 5	July 16, 2010 05:48 (EDT)
	Melissa	P Nothing could be further from the truth. Folks aren't staying home. They just step outside to smoke without making any fuss at all .....Since the vast majority does NOT smoke, businesses thrive! I hope that you win your gamble but it's a big one and the stakes are the highest of all.    Melissa

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