Smoking: Germany Observations

CSEO – the Cigarette Smoke Exposure Ontology
Abstract
Background
In the past years, significant progress has been made to develop and use experimental settings for extensive data collection on tobacco smoke exposure and tobacco smoke exposure-associated diseases. Due to the growing number of such data, there is a need for domain-specific standard ontologies to facilitate the integration of tobacco exposure data.
Results
The CSEO (version 1.0) is composed of 20091 concepts. The ontology in its current form is able to capture a wide range of cigarette smoke exposure conceptswithin the knowledge domain of exposure science with a reasonable sensitivity and specificity. Moreover, it showed a promising performance when used to answer domain expert questions. The CSEO complies with standard upper-level ontologies and is freely acces sible to the scientific community through a dedicated wiki .
Conclusions
The CSEO has potential to become a widely used standard within the a cademic and industrial community. Mainly because of the emerging need of systems toxic ology to controlled vocabularies and also the lack of suitable ontologies for this doma in, the CSEO prepares the ground for integrative systems-based research in the exposure science.
Read More
http://www.jbiomedsem.com/content/pdf/2041-1480-5-31.pdf

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Will the Germans Block the Tobacco Directive?
8/30/2013
Bid to delay tobacco vote until after German election

Here is the text of the article:
German MEPs want vote delayed, but NGOs fear this could doom proposal.

Centre-right German MEPs are pushing for a delay in the European Parliament vote on new European U nion tobacco restrictions, scheduled for 10 September, according to Parliament sources.??

Several centre-right lawmakers including German MEP Herbert Reul have asked for a delay in the vote, saying there is not enough time to review the proposal after MEPs return from their summer break next week.??

Another reason given for a delay is that many German MEPs will be absent because of the upcoming German election. There is also apprehension about what political impact the vote could have just ahead of the German poll, scheduled for 22 September.??

Group leaders will discuss whether to delay the vote on Tuesday (3 September). EPP group leader Joseph Daul has not yet decided whether to ask for the vote to be delayed, his office said. German MEP Karl-Heinz Florenz, shadow rapporteur for the subject with the EPP group, wants the vote to proceed as planned.??

The vote would likely be rescheduled for one of the two plenary sessions in October. It is expected that the centre-right ECR group would back such a move if a request were made by the EPP.??

Health campaigners are concerned that the move is part of a delaying tactic by the tobacco industry to ensure the revision of the Tobacco Products Directive will not be agreed by the end of the current parliament and commission mandate in 2014.??

“When the proposal was finally published in December 2012, the Parliament and the Council complained bitterly about how difficult it would be for them to close this dossier before the European Elections,” said Florence Berteletti Kemp, director of the Smoke Free Partnership. “Nevertheless, both institutions have found ways to move forward only to be faced with a new delay attempt just as the needed agreement is in sight.”??

“The tobacco industry uses a web of allies within institutions to do this and it would be scandalous if the Parliament let itself be manipulated in this manner,” she added.??

The Parliament’s environment and public health committee narrowly voted on 10 July to back the Commission’s proposal for pictorial health warnings covering 75% of a pack, a ban on slim cigarettes and flavourings and to regulate e-cigarettes as pharmaceuticals for the purpose of authorisation.
Read more.

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Demonstration in Dortmund, Germany
10/25/12
Last month, smokers, bar owners and other freedom lovers in Dortmund, Germany, rallied against current plans to toughen the state-wide smoking ban in North Rhine Westphalia (the largest German state).
Several hundreds of participants at this primarily local demonstration protested an upcoming near-total smoking ban for the hospitality sector.
Speeches were given by local and regional politicians from different political parties, including a dissenter from the Social Democrats, (who have faced a lot of internal opposition to their pro-ban stance), a bar owner, a vapors’ group and TICAP member organization Rauchen NRW.
The Bar and Restaurant Association as well as other economically involved groups have also launched protest activities. The ban is scheduled to come into force next year.
– A Newsletter Reader

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Hamburg’s smoking ban goes up in smoke
21 Feb 12

Hamburg’s complicated smoking ban was ruled unconstitutional by Germany’s highest court on Tuesday, forcing the city state to devise a new regulation.

The Constitutional Court, based in the southwestern town of Karlsruhe, ruled that smoking bans must be imposed on restaurants and bars alike, or not at all.

Hamburg’s unique smoking ban – the matter is decided at state, not federal, level in Germany – says that bars that only offer drinks are allowed to keep a separate smoking room, while places that offer food are not. The Karlsruhe judges decided that this was a violation of the German constitution’s articles safeguarding fair competition.

Hamburg restaurants are now allowed to install separate smoking rooms until the city’s authorities come up with a new ruling.

The court also said that the same conflict does not exist in any other German state, where there are either blanket smoking bans or exceptions for smoking rooms.

The ruling was sparked by a legal complaint from the manager of a motorway service station, who wanted to install a separate smoking room for her customers – she said that 80 percent of them were smoking truck drivers.

The court based its decision on evidence from the German Cancer Research Centre, which said that “from a scientific point of view, it makes no difference if the toxic substances in tobacco smoke are inhaled in a bar or a restaurant.

Almost all German states allow exceptions to their smoking bans in bars and restaurants. Only Bavaria and Saarland have imposed a total ban.

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Herfing in Hamburg – a Moveable Feast

August 14th, 2009
by James Leavey?

It was raining in Hamburg and my Afghan taxi driver, a friendly chap whose Sat Nav was on the blink, told me he had moved to the German city twenty years ago and knew it like the back of his hand.

This was just before he got seriously lost on the way in from the airport. At one point during the mystery tour I thought I’d been hijacked.

Eventually, we reached my goal: Colln’s traditional German restaurant, where six herfers (early 30s to early-60s) from Britain had gathered to share their mutual love of premium cigars and all the other finer things of life.

They’d first met in a City of London cigar merchant’s emporium seven years earlier and have since been enjoying each other’s company around the world several times a year. All a herfer needs is a fine cigar, a light, a drink, something to eat, and another aficionado to share the ashtray and discuss the merits of hand-rolled tubes of fine tobacco.

The herfers have joined forces as Nicotine Ambassadors in London, Ireland, Spain, and Scotland, and Harry’s Bar in Paris. They also assured me their usual going away line to their wives/girlfriends was, “I’m off on a herfin`g weekend with the lads.” As their other halves apparently didn’t didn’t bat an eyelid, it makes you wonder what they got up to when their menfolk were away.

On this damp Friday evening in Germany, two of the Herfers eventually managed to guide my taxi driver to their restaurant, via their mobile phones. Their instructions included several versions of, “What do you mean, you can’t find the centre of the city!” and “If you put the bloody rifle down you may find it easier to drive.”

When I eventually caught up with the herfers, they were on their final course of spirits and Havanas. Over the next two days we bonded while sampling the culinary, retail therapy and other delights of a city that is both beautiful and booming yet often undervalued by our fellow Brits.

Hamburg is one of the most affluent and interesting cities in Europe. There is far to it than the Reeperbahn (now partly gentrified) in St Pauli.

It’s not known as the City on the Waterfront for nothing. Almost 2,500 bridges – far more than Amsterdam, London and Venice combined – cross the innumerable watercourses between the Elbe, Alster and Bille.

Hamburg also claims it invented the ship cruise. In 1846, the Hamburg ship-owner, Rob M. Sloman, Jr, offered the world’s first cruise aboard his frigate, Germania. Today, there are around 130 calls by cruise ships to Hamburg every year.

On Saturday, we joined 43 other European cigar aficionados and smoked, ate and drank our way down the river. The trip was courtesy of Mitchell Orchant and Christoph Wolters, two of Europe’s most successful cigar retailers who joined forces to open their first La Casa del Habano in Hamburg? a year earlier.

After the river cruise, during which I spotted the QM2, the herfers crowded into Orchant and Wolters’ upmarket new Casa in the heart of Hamburg’s elegant and trendy Chilehaus. Even non-smokers shop there – for the Casa has one of the largest selections of fine rums in the world.

But the most memorable thing of this visit to Hamburg was the time I spent with the herfers It was like being in a cinema verite film directed by John Cassavetes, scripted by Ernest Hemingway and starring the Rat Pack. They were loaded, and so were the ashtrays.

They’re the kind of people you hope to bump into on a cruise ship, even if you hate smoking. In fact, I have considered shang-hai-ing them in one of the bars they like to frequent and renting them out to major operators such Cunard and P&O; Cruises.

Hemingway would have loved them.

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German occupational health experts debunk passive smoking fraud

November 21, 2008

Typical myths of the anti-smoking movement are the alleged dangers to hospitality staff by passive smoking and the claim by an Italian “scientist” that tobacco smoke leads to more toxins in the air than fumes from diesel engines.

This propaganda was given a reality check by the German Berufsgenossenschaft Nahrungsmittel und Gastst?tten (BGN), the Employers Liability Insurance Association for the food and hospitality sector, a compulsory body for all companies in that area controlled by trade u nions and employers organizations alike.

Last year, their scientific and prevention department took a closer look at the findings of tobacco control researcher Giovanni Invernizzi (and colleagues) saying that ETS causes more particulate matter than an ecodiesel engine running idle. This study has already been exposed by FORCES International in a thorough theoretical analysis a few years ago.

The German scientists of the BGN did something else: they reproduced the experiment under equal circumstances, but they used various different measurement instruments. Their conclusion: With suitable instruments, the pollution produced by an idling diesel engine is much greater than by cigarettes. There is only one instrument that leads to another result: the one Invernizzi used, an aerosol monitor unable to detect a large part of the ultrafine particulate matter from the car.

The BGN analysis is now available in English (3 pages).

Furthermore, the occupational health researchers from Mannheim scrutinized alleged risk elevation for lung cancer among exposed hospitality employees. Once again, they did their own empirical work using data from health insurance providers about millions of employees in Germany comparing hospitality workers to people working in other trades. Their conclusion: “In contrast to the estimated data in the ‘calculated’ models, this analysis of real patients’ data showed results that prove a lot less lung cancers and heart and bronchial diseases of employees in this sector compared to other sectors. There was no distinction between smokers and non-smokers.”

If reality does not support epidemiologist charlatanry, then reality must be wrong.

In more general terms, the scientists critized the literature on passive smoking and lung cancer. “The results of international studies vary considerably, to an extent almost unprecedented in other fields of epidemiology. The consequences of the usage of incomparable methods in the individual studies are not scientifically nor socially defensible. The quality of meta-studies and overview studies is questionable because they cannot be better than the bases upon which they rely.

“It is astonishing how uncritically authors of meta-studies and overview studies deal with recent studies from the literature and how airily they draw far-reaching conclusions.”

This analysis (7 pages) is also available in English.

The BGN also questions the invented figure of 3.301 annual deaths by passive smoking in Germany, the number one propaganda myth of anti-tobacco activists. In a scientific conference, Prof. Ulrich Keil, Big Pharma friend, tobacco control alchemist and the inventor of these non-existing deaths, was faced with critical questions by the head of the BGN prevention department, Prof. Dr. Romano Grieshaber. Keil reacted typically: he immediately fled from the conference room.

Speaking the truth makes you unpopular with anti-tobacco, so Prof. Grieshaber became the target of the usual witchhunt. Behind the scenes, people like Keil tried to remove him from his office at the BGN, the WHO Collaborating Centre on Tobacco Control in Germany attacked him using the “well-known defense mechanisms like defamation, emotionalization, and the allegation of dependences (official BGN paper.)”

We hope that the voices of scientific decency will not be silenced.

All original documents here:

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MEP’s (European Parliament) caught by RTL reporters as they try to cheat on their expenses before the week-end, especially fanatic MEP Anti-smoker Hiltrud Breyer (The GREENS) (from minute 3:40)
Click here to watch the video.

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Pete Robinson: German ban goes up in smoke
29 April, 2008
By Pete Robinson
There’s a war going on in Germany, and this time they’re winning.
I’m talking about the German smoking ban, currently jammed firmly in reverse gear. Angela Merkel’s government has faithfully copied the tactics employed by our own beloved Nu-Labour – lies, propaganda and junk science – yet they’ve failed miserably in theface of people-power.
Remember when we were being told our pubs had nothing to fear from the smoking ban? How commercially successful it had been in Ireland and the USA, where bars were teeming with ‘new’ customers?
In my discussions with German landlords and their customers, when I inform them of the damage it’s doing to our own licenced trade I’m always met with gobsmacked, shocked surprise.
“No-oooo! You Englishers WANTED your smoking ban! Your pubs are all very busy now, we know this. Ya?”
They’re being spoon-fed the same diet of State-sponsored bull***t that we were. They are told we Brits have all ’embraced’ our ban, that our pubs and clubs have never been so busy, and that most smokers are giving up the weed as a direct result.
Amazingly they have all heard of the “Scottish Miracle”, where heart attacks were virtually wiped out within one year of Scotland’s smoking ban. I always said that lie would run and run – now we’re exporting it.
The Germans blame you and me for their smoking ban, believing it’s us Brits who are arrogantly imposing our current obsession with health matters on the rest of Europe. If only they knew the truth.
All I could do was bleat on about… yes, we have meekly accepted the ban without putting up a fight but under our elected dictatorship we had little choice. “Ve vere only following orders. For us ze var ist over”.
But the Germans are made of sterner stuff and their smoking ban has a troubled history. In 2006 Angela Merkel’s government introduced a nationwide blanket smoking ban. Within days it was humiliatingly repealed following massive public outcry and a series of legal challenges.
You see the German people are constitutionally protected from State-imposed unpopular laws, originally to protect them from any Nazi resurgence. So the ban was passed on for decision at local level in Germany’s 16 different states.
The end result has been a patchwork quilt of watered-down restrictions which has thrown up all sorts of daft anomalies. In a small town near Trier, for example, I found a Shisha Cafe next door to a large, traditional tavern where smoking was banned.
The owner told me his wet sales had plummeted by 50% as customers had simply moved to the town’s smaller bars where smoking was permitted.
In fact most states have opted for ‘soft’ smoking restrictions, where larger premises need merely to provide separate smoking and non-smoking rooms.
Bavaria had introduced the harshest bans, with smoking even banned inside the vast drinking tents of the annual Oktoberfest. Hardly surprising as the state is governed by the sister party to Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic U nion.
However last month Bavarian voters gave them an absolute roasting in the local elections, barely two months after the ban was introduced. Now those same, previously ‘anti’ politicians are back-pedalling furiously having decided they now hate smoking bans.
Indoor smoking is already back on at the Oktoberfest, also in Munich and Nuremberg’s historical brauhouses. Exemptions still in the pipeline will include fairer rules for most bars and even some restaurants.
This bizarre spectacle has been nervously scrutinised by other hard-line states who are moving heaven and earth to soften their restrictions.
In Berlin enforcement of their ban has been deferred until August while, following court action by a consortium of bar owners, small bars are to be exempt provided they display signs to warn customers they are entering a smoking venue.
Similar court cases are being heard all over Germany, much to the chagrin of German antis. Otmar Wiestler, leader of the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ, their equivalent of our CRUK) is enraged at this turn of events.
“We are miles away from implementing comprehensive protection for non-smokers,” said Wiestler.
Despite the positive news there are a great many German landlords losing out through this uncertainty. The German Hotel and Restaurant Association (Dehoga), which actively rallies against the ban, has released a report claiming that 58 percent of their member establishments have seen a sharp drop in business in 2008.
Uli Stegmaier, a Berlin barkeeper and father of five children, hanged himself last month having left a suicide note blaming the new public smoking ban for his decision.
Significantly ASH-uk highlighted this in their daily bulletin, as if it were something to gloat about.
But in general the anti-ban lobby are tipping the scales. There are regular demonstrations where thousands of bar owners march to raise awareness of their fears.
What I can’t help but notice is a sense of unity about what they are doing. There are very few pubcos in Germany so representative bodies reflect the bar owner’s interests, not the misguided greed of men-in-suits.
German ‘community bar’ owners have mobilised their customers who are only too willing to support them. Petitions abound everywhere and they are quite prepared to “fight them on the beaches”.
Plus Germany has no equivalent of ASH, the obsessive, powerful state-sponsored ‘charity’ with a vested interest in the decimation of our pubs. Antis have far linfluence in Germany where the words ‘majority opinion’ aren’t considered offensive.
Which begs the question we must all ask ourselves: if the Germans can fight to successfully gain a fair interpretation of anti-smoking laws at what point will we follow suit?
When we’ve lost half of our pubs? Two-thirds? Or never?

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Jews irate over protest’s Nazi-era symbolism
01/13/2008

The use of a yellow Star of David to protest Germany’s new smoking ban has the country’s Jewish leaders fuming.

A company based in northwest Germany sold T-shirts featuring the word “smoker” in a yellow star.

Using the symbol is “brainless, brazen and tasteless,” Dieter Graumann, vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, told the DPA press agency.

The Web site selling the shirt was promptly shut down. The seller, Dennis Kramer, said the announcement on his site that 1,000 shirts had been sold already was “just an advertising ploy” and that no shirts had actually been sold.

Kramer told the DPA that he “wanted to show that smokers are being discriminated against in bars.” He said he never thought it would arouse the ire of the Central Council of Jews.

Nazis forced Jews in Germany and occupied countries to wear a yellow star in public as part of a systematic policy of humilation and extermination.

The smoking ban went into effect on Jan. 1 in restaurants and bars in most German states.

The local state prosecutor’s office reportedly is looking into whether there is cause for charges to be filed against Kramer.

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Restaurateur Introduces Smoking Hole

December 20, 2007

A restaurateur in Lower Saxony has refused to be deterred by the state’s new ban on smoking in bars and restaurants: He has sawed three holes in the wall so patrons can smoke “outside.”

A German restaurateur has come up with a novel solution to a new ban on smoking in restaurants: He has made three holes in the wall of his restaurant so that customers can smoke “outside.”

PHOTO GALLERY: GETTING ROUND THE SMOKING BAN

Michael Windisch, proprietor of the “Maltermeister Turm” restaurant in Goslar in the state of Lower Saxony, was frustrated by the state’s ban on smoking in bars and restaurants, which was introduced on Aug. 1 (more…). His solution was to get out the saw.

With the “smoking point,” customers can put their heads through the large hole in the middle and one hand through each of the two smaller side holes. The patrons can then enjoy a cigarette “outside,” without having to leave the comfort of the inn.

The idea could well catch on across the country: Several of Germany’s 16 federal states are to introduce smoking bans on Jan. 1, 2008, including Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia and the city states of Berlin and Hamburg.

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May 11, 2007
We at Forces Germany have analyzed a study based on actually measured PM2.5 and nicotine levels in hospitality venues and which was published by the German WHO Collaboration Center (part of the German Cancer Research Institute). We compared their values (which they claimed require hospitality workers to wear gas masks) with the prevalent occupational permissible levels (PELs).
These PELs are adopted in almost all European countries and refer back to USA sources (EPA, OSHA, NIOSH).
The green bars in the attached graphs represent the PELs (average per shift (workday) or peak). TRGS 900 is the name of the regulation document.
Our analysis in full is available (in German) at
http://www.netzwerk-rauchen.de/documents/Gastronomie_keine_Giftkueche_5.pdf
– Ben Palmer

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Germans Favor Owner Discretion on Smoking Over Ban, Poll Shows

By Claudia Rach
March 20, 2007

German restaurant and pub owners should be left to decide themselves whether to impose a smoking ban in their facilities, a poll showed, giving backing to those who favor voluntary measures over anti-smoking legislation.

Seventy-one percent of 1,000 people surveyed agreed with Christian Wulff, the prime minister of the state of Lower Saxony, who rejects a general smoking ban in favor of leaving the provision of non-smoking facilities to the discretion of individual owners, according to a poll conducted March 19 by market researcher TSN Emnid for N24 television.

Germany’s 16 states agreed Feb. 23 on joint steps to push for anti-smoking legislation that would bring Germany more into line with other European nations. They proposed a smoking ban in restaurants, public buildings, discos, schools, hospitals, theaters and museums, while agreeing to allow smokers to light up in rooms that are separated from the rest of the premises.

Wulff said then that Lower Saxony and North Rhine- Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, wanted to review whether owners of bars and cafes could themselves decide whether to allow smoking in their facilities. All 16 states will meet again on March 22 in Berlin to discuss anti-smoking measures.

Some 43 percent of those surveyed said they would like to see smoking forbidden in general in restaurants, while 52 percent would be happy with a separate smoking room, according to the poll, which had a margin of error of 2 percentage points. Forty-eight percent like to see a separate room in pubs and clubs, while 30 percent would like to continue to smoke unhindered, it showed.

To contact the reporter on this story: Claudia Rach in Berlin at crach1@bloomberg.net .

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The Power Behind the German Smoking Ban Stalemate

02/22/07
Nick Amies

Germany’s smoke-filled bars and cafes are almost a rarity in western Europe

As a crucial meeting on protecting non-smokers opens in Germany Friday, a look at the country’s powerful tobacco lobby offers some clues as to why Germany has successfully resisted an outright smoking ban so far.

The struggle in Germany to agree on a smoking ban continues this week when government ministers convene in Hanover on Friday to discuss the issue of protection for non-smokers before a state premiers’ debate on March 22.

The meeting, to be chaired by Federal Minister for Health, Ulla Schmidt and Consumer Affairs Minister, Horst Seehofer will be used to further discuss whether smoking in schools, public buildings and most restaurants should be banned by Germany’s 16 federal states.

The decision to hand the responsibility for approving the ban to the individual states came after Germany’s ruling coalition rescinded the original ban proposal on constitutional grounds in December last year. The government said an outright federal ban could infringe on individual states’ rights, many of which cannot be overridden by Berlin.

Bildunterschrift: Gro?ansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: The states are responsible for issuing bans in public placesIt is the 16 states, not the federal government, which have power over local government facilities such as schools and hospitals, as well as places such as bars and restaurants — those places where the smoking ban was proposed.

Pro-smoking lobbyists pulling the strings?

The decision was also seen as another example of the German government’s unwillingness to confront the country’s powerful pro-smoking lobby which opposition politicians and anti-smoking campaigners believe holds too much influence over the ruling coalition of the Christian Democratic U nion (CDU) and Social Democrats (SPD).

Germany has been slow to follow the lead of those EU states which have already agreed and have implemented their own smoking bans. France, Italy and England have already passed laws that ban smoking in bars and restaurants, as well as public buildings, putting Germany out of step with many of its European counterparts. Pressure from the anti-smoking lobby is suspected as being the reason why Germany continues to lag behind.

But does the pro- lobby really have that amount of power, that the German government would defy European U nion directives to satisfy its wishes?

Bildunterschrift: Gro?ansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Lobbyists are accused of pressuring the government”The pro-smoker lobby is stronger in Germany than in any other European country,” Siggi Ermer, the chairman of Pro Rauchfrei, the German lobby for non-smokers said. “Even the tobacco companies are proud of that fact. Its influence is so strong that Pro Rauchfrei talks about a tobacco dictatorship in a democratic state. (The pro- lobby) has affected the legislation for decades and crucially has steered the politicians.

“It is so powerful that in the current discussions, the CDU/CSU parliamentary group brought in a regulation paper from the German Tobacco Industry Association (VdC) and presented it word for word as their own proposal for the negotiations.”

The German Tobacco Industry Association (VdC) was unavailable for comment on its involvement in any parliamentary decisions or the extent of its influence over the government.

Wolfgang Hainer, head of the powerful Vdc, who represents the interests of Philip Morris, British American Tobacco, Reemtsma and four other tobacco companies in Germany recently told German weekly Die Zeit, “we collect information, channel the opinions of our members and then present the facts to the politicians.”

The Vdc is also said to organize regular parties at its headquarters in Berlin which usually pulls in younger employees from the German ministries and the offices of parliamentarians.

No such thing as a free lunch in lobbyists’ eyes

Germany is an important battleground for the pro-smoking lobby. It is Europe’s biggest tobacco market with about 22 million smokers, which is 27 percent of the population, according to the federal statistics office.

And with more and more EU countries cracking down on smokers, the hearts, minds and lungs of German smokers have become more valuable to the tobacco companies. For the pro-smoking lobby to retain its advantage, alliances have to be formed with those in power.

“In Germany, the tobacco lobby has a strong influence on the politicians,” Pro Rauchfrei’s Ermer says. “That begins with regular gifts directly to the desks of the delegates, and goes as far as direct payments for local government events and party meetings.”

“Beyond that the delegates are invited regularly to meetings of the tobacco industry, the agendas of which are disguised by social topics. Until 2006, the total of direct payments paid to the Federal Government by the tobacco industry amounts to 11.2 million euros.”

Inaction and stalling cannot stop ban

Bildunterschrift: Gro?ansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: The hopes of the anti- lobby regularly get trodden onErmer states that there is a network of pro-smoking sympathizers within the political arena in Germany and that smokers within the government have an obvious agenda.

“Whole parliamentary committees, such as the tourism committee, have been infiltrated by the tobacco lobby,” he added “In addition, the health minister Ulla Schmidt avoids making clear decisions. Unlike in other European countries, the German health minister doesn’t take the leadership in the ban discussion and leaves the demagogues to take the lead.”

Despite the power wielded by the pro-lobby, Ermer believes that the move towards a smoke-free Europe is an irreversible one.

“While the influence in Germany is large, the German pro-smoker lobby has only a small influence on Europe,” Ermer concludes. “On a European scale, Germany is isolated, as the judgment of the European Court of Justice pointed out with the tobacco advertising ban in 2005. Only Germany complained and lost,” he said.

“The European way into a smokeless future cannot be stopped, it can only be slowed down by Germany.”

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German Smoking Ban Would End a Vicarious Pleasure: Amity Shlaes