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Germany: tobacco industry still dictates policy

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK; t@gzzz.freeserve.co.uk; anna.gilmore@lshtm.ac.uk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The majority of the German public (over 60% in independent surveys) who support comprehensive smoke-free legislation will have been disappointed by the recent, farcical turn of events in Germany. For the tobacco industry, used to dictating tobacco control policy in Germany, December was surely business as usual.

Triggered by the success of smoke-free legislation in other European countries and recent estimates that over 3300 deaths per year can be attributed to secondhand smoke in Germany, last September, two groups of parliamentarians made independent proposals for comprehensive national smoke-free legislation. Both gained large support in parliament, and the grand coalition government established a working group to craft a comprehensive law. While smoking restrictions in schools, public buildings and hospitals were largely accepted, those in restaurants, pubs and bars were highly controversial, stimulating a media circus and strong opposition from the Verband der Cigarettenindustrie (VdC), the tobacco industry’s trade organisation in Germany.

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