A number of provisions of the strictest ever Moldovan anti-tobacco law come into effect on June 1. Programs coordinator at the Center for Health Policies and Studies Ghenadie Turcanu said the given law is different from the previous one not only by the restrictions imposed on smokers, but also by the organizational measures that the owners of closed public areas must take, IPN reports.
“The law provides that the owner/employer must first of all place no smoking signs in places where smoking is banned by law. If the sign is absent and a person is found smoking in that place, this will not be fined. It is the owner that faces penalties in such a case,” Ghenadie Turcanu stated in an interview for Radio Free Europe.
The new provisions ban smoking in closed and semi-closed places. The no smoking sign must be placed at the entrance, in a visible place. As regards smoking on the stairs of blocks, Ghenadie Turcanu said smoking there and at the entrance to elevators is banned. If the building managers placed the sign to inform the dwellers that smoking on the stairs in banned, it is the smoker who is penalized by the State Public Health Surveillance Service.
According to the expert, among the countries of the region Russia’s similar law is hasher than Moldova’s. This provides that smoking is banned even in open areas at a distance of 15 meters and thus setting up smoking places near buildings is impossible there. “Such European countries as the UK, Ireland, Spain and the Netherlands have draconian anti-smoking laws and these laws led to an improvement in public health in these countries,” said Ghenadie Turcanu.
He noted that in Moldova they smoke a lot. The country ranks fourth in the European region by the number of smoking men. The anti-tobacco law adopted in 2007 envisioned a lot of exceptions and turned out to be inefficient given that the number of smoking women and teens increases annually.
