I only lived in America for six months. And there was only one thing I got used to quickly, got very attached to, and still miss. The ban on smoking in cafés, restaurants, and indoor spaces in general.
In any Moscow establishment, even if you go to the "non-smoking section" (the three most inconvenient tables by the entrance or the restroom), you’re still sitting in a cloud of smoke. And if we’re talking about an evening/night trip to a bar, it’s basically the same as being doused in nicotine tar and ash. Your clothes smell so bad afterward that you’d think they needed to be boiled in bleach for 15 hours. In America, in the overwhelming majority of European countries, and even in countries that until recently were considered heavy-smoking (Japan, for example), this is already unthinkable. In the entire six months I spent in the States, I saw a person smoking maybe seven times. Five of those were in Miami, where there are a lot of Hispanics and various other migrants. Smoking has become a marker not even of poverty, but simply of antisocial behavior and decline. Here, though, any random guy pulls out a cigarette and starts puffing away. He doesn’t care whether anyone around him smokes or not. Not even children, pregnant women, or cute little kittens suffering from tobacco smoke are enough to stop anyone. And cigarette butts? We’re a country of cigarette butts! Parks, beaches, public gardens, streets, and alleyways are always covered with a layer of them. I assume this post won’t make me any more popular, but on this issue I take a hard and aggressive position: bans, bans, and more bans. Only two measures can really help society beat smoking: a total ban on smoking in public places higher excise taxes on cigarettes You can say I’m obsessed with fighting corruption, but I’m convinced that corruption is exactly why our country has become a leader in smoking prevalence. The tobacco lobby operates completely openly here. It actively bankrolls a number of officials in the Finance Ministry, the Ministry of Health and Social Development, and the State Duma (the lower house of Russia’s parliament). By the way, not long ago we watched an amusing clash between the "youth wing" of United Russia (tagan and others), which for once decided to do something useful and came forward with anti-smoking initiatives, and the tobacco lobby within that same United Russia. As might have been expected, their fellow party members on tobacco company payrolls thoroughly crushed the youngsters. What’s more, as we know, the chief official tobacco lobbyist recently received a parliamentary seat from the Party of Crooks and Thieves. It’s very easy to spot an official who takes bribes from the tobacco industry: they always push two lines: Raising excise taxes will lead to tobacco riots. Bans won’t solve anything; what we need is healthy lifestyle propaganda, educational outreach for schoolchildren, and all that other nonsense. All of this is complete lies, disproven many times over by research and practice. My younger brother, for example, smokes like a chimney. He couldn’t care less about healthy lifestyle propaganda or scary warning labels on cigarette packs. He actually likes those labels. Besides, covert advertising for smoking will always be cleverer and more appealing than healthy lifestyle propaganda:
But if a pack of cigarettes costs 300 rubles (roughly US$10 at the time), and to smoke he has to go outside and stand 5 meters away from the entrance, then smoking will bring him more inconvenience than pleasure. I’m convinced the situation is now fully ripe for restrictive measures. I ran a couple of polls on Twitter (I’m not claiming they were especially representative), and even the overwhelming majority of smokers supported bans, understanding that only bans would help them quit. Here’s an example. While preparing for the 2005 Moscow City Duma elections, the headquarters of the YABLOKO party (I was a member of the campaign team at the time) commissioned a large survey in Moscow, with a sample of 5,000 people. The survey was conducted by the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Among other things, the survey included "unusual initiatives"—a number of new proposals that could potentially be used in the campaign, but that we weren’t sure people would support. Respondents were asked to rate each initiative on a five-point scale, where 5 meant "fully support." So, a "complete ban on smoking in public places" scored 4.8, second only to "mass construction of bicycle lanes," which scored 4.9. V. V. Putin and D. A. Medvedev need to stop feeding us nonsense. Their direct duty is: 1. To drive the tobacco lobby out of the government and the State Duma 2. To introduce a ban on smoking in shared public venues (cafés, bars, restaurants) and allow regions/municipalities to impose bans on public spaces in general (city beaches, parks, public gardens, certain streets). 3. Within a year, to raise cigarette excise taxes so that the price of a pack is no less than 300 rubles. Within five years, smoking in Russia will be as uncommon as it is in the United States, we’ll save a huge amount of money on healthcare, and everyone will be happy (including the cute little kittens). Poll: [Error: Invalid poll ID 1747170]