A major struggle is growing in Italy between the pro- and anti-tobacco lobbies concerning the voluntary decision of Trenitalia, the corporation that manages the long distance, reservation only Eurostar (ES) trains, which introduced a complete smoking ban starting from March 2004. However, even non-smokers are doubtful about a total ban and wonder whether this decision could be an excessive penalty for smokers on these trains, with journey times of up to six hours.

Before the ban, ES trains had two smoking coaches (the first and the last carriages out of a total of 11). The smoking coaches were separated from the adjacent non-smoking carriages by …