ARMENIA’S ANTI-SMOKING LAW: PUFF OR PROGRESS?
By Karine Ter-Saakian in Yerevan
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
Dec 8 2004
In this country, even the doctors and politicians who warn of the
evils of nicotine are smokers themselves.
Armenia is the smoking capital of Europe.
The World Health Organisation, WHO, estimates that 63.7 per cent of
Armenian men are smokers, which makes them the heaviest puffers in
Europe. While there are no reliable statistics for the smaller number
of women smokers, their number is growing every year.
In Yerevan, billboards every ten metres display cigarette
advertisements for both Armenian and well-known international brands.
“It’s a national disgrace,” Grant Vardanian told IWPR. That’s a
surprising comment, coming from a business tycoon with a monopoly on
Armenia’s tobacco industry. “That’s what I say, even me, and those are
my advertising billboards hanging there! Until now, our legislators
have failed to pass a law prohibiting cigarette advertisements in
public places.”
Nonetheless, it was Vardanian and a group of other businessmen directly
involved in the production and distribution of cigarettes who earlier
this year led opposition to an anti-smoking bill in parliament.
Another legislative attempt to fight Armenia’s smoking habit is
currently being considered by the National Assembly, and could become
law by the end of the year.
The problem is chronic. In the cafes and restaurants of Armenia you can
hardly make out people’s faces in the dense tobacco smoke. “How can you
drink a cup of coffee without a cigarette?” is the sort of remark that
regulars in Yerevan’s countless cafes make to a curious journalist.
True, smoking has recently been banned in some large offices, but
this has little effect on the general public.
“All my friends smoke, so am I any worse than they are?” asked Narine,
a regular visitor to the Poplavok café in central Yerevan. “I know it’s
bad for you, but so what? What difference does it make if you live five
years more or less. I could give up if I wanted to. There is a saying,
you know: someone who doesn’t smoke or drink is damaging his health.”
According to the WHO, 2,000 people between the ages of 35 and 70
die every year in Armenia from smoking-related diseases such as lung
cancer and heart attacks.
“They are not dying from smoking,” said cardiologist Tigran Haianian,
“but from stress. Smoking only aggravates and attacks the weak parts
of the body. But they should give up, of course.”
Somewhat undercutting his fine words, Haianian admits he has been
smoking since his student years and is not about to give up.
Alexander Bazarjian, co-ordinator of the public health ministry’s
anti-tobacco programme, argues that if Armenia were to sign up to the
WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control it could save millions
of lives, “The convention obliges everyone to fight against smoking,
and if we do not subscribe to it, then we are pronouncing an ultimatum
on our health.”
But this message does not seem to be getting through. After all,
health minister Norair Davidian is a smoker himself.
After doctors, it is of course journalists who smoke more than anyone
else. “Well, how can you write without a cigarette? Your head just
doesn’t work,” is a remark that typifies the attitude of three quarters
of Armenian journalists, regardless of gender.
On the days a newspaper goes to press, the smoke in editorial offices
is suffocating. “You may as well smoke yourself, at least fewer people
will hassle you about it,” said journalist Yelena Galoyan.
Legislation limiting the sale and consumption of tobacco products,
proposed by the permanent parliamentary commission for science,
education, culture and sport was adopted in a first hearing by
parliament in mid-November.
The campaign is already having some effect. Rumour has it that the
entire Armenian government gave up smoking simultaneously, but how long
they can keep it up is another matter. President Robert Kocharian does
not smoke, but the same cannot be said of his subordinates. True,
in the new Yerevan mayor’s office there is not a single ashtray and
no area for smokers.
Artur Bagdasarian, speaker of the National Assembly, laid down
something of a challenge when he declared triumphantly that he had
given up, prompting journalists to begin stalking him and other
deputies to see whether they could catch them out.
But there is another side to the coin. Cigarette production accounts
for 3.3 per cent of Armenia’s industrial output, and in 2001-03,
profits from both imported cigarettes and the sale of locally
manufactured product amounted to 42 million US dollars.
Last May, anti-smoking legislation failed in parliament because many
deputies had vested interests in the cigarette business.
The watered-down version reviewed by parliament last month now protects
the interests of cigarette manufacturers. As it stands now, smoking
will still be permitted in cafes and restaurants, and taxes and excise
duties on Armenian-made brands will remain low. Prices of cigarettes –
currently between 50 cents and a dollar for a packet – are set to rise.
If it is passed, the new law will impose restrictions on advertising,
the sale of cigarettes to minors, and smoking in public places.
Ordinary Armenians wonder how much difference it will make.
“Cigarette advertising is very attractive, with its courageous young
men and elegant models inviting you to take up smoking,” market trader
Grigor Khachatrian told IWPR. “Our young people are attracted by
beauty, they hardly think about the dangers. But banning it won’t work.
Smokers will smoke. The advertisements don’t work on me, though –
I’ve never smoked in my life.”
Economics expert Eduard Agajanov argues that “a ban on advertising
local products leads to buyers preferring attractive foreign goods”.
“If this law becomes government policy, then of course I will obey it,”
said parliamentary deputy Shavarsh Kocharian.
“And if we ban advertising, well so what? People will smoke all
the same.”
Kocharian should know – he’s not planning to give up.
Karine Ter-Saakian is a freelance journalist based in Yerevan.
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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress