Tobacco.org

• Czechs clarify smoking legislation but total ban still long way off  

The Czech Republic clarified – rather than tightened – its smoking legislation on Friday, when the Senate passed an amendment to the law on smoking in public places. The amendment was very much a compromise between anti-smoking campaigners on one hand, and those trying to protect people’s right to light up in bars and restaurants on the other. But as Rob Cameron reports, a total ban – such as that which exists in many European countries - is still a long way off.

As any visitor to Prague already knows, smokers are mostly free to light up anywhere and anytime they want in Czech bars, pubs and restaurants. The present legislation merely requires the owners of such establishments to divide seating areas into smoking and non-smoking, but when all that means is smoke wafting over from a smoking area into a non-smoking area, that separation is largely imaginary.

The new law attempts to clarify that. From now on – if the president signs it – pubs and restaurants will decide whether they are smoking or not, and will be obliged to say so on the door. Veteran anti-smoking campaigner Boris Šťastný, one of the MPs who drew up the amendment, had this to say to the online news server novinky.cz:

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Foreigners ran Czech illegal tobacco plant  

Czech customs officers said they arrested six illegal immigrants who operated a clandestine tobacco plant producing cigarettes for the British market.

The illegal cigarette factory at Chvalovice, outside Prague, was the 12th similar plant discovered since the Czech Republic became a member of the European Union in 2004, Miroslav Novacek, an official of the Czech customs directorate, told reporters Friday.

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• AUDIO: Smoke in the face of Czech anti-tobacco campaigners  

The Czech Republic has taken a step against the anti-smoking flow in the rest of Europe. While anti-smoking bans have spread across the continent in recent years, Czech MPs have proposed a relaxation of the current rules for smoking in pubs and restaurants. Anti-smoking groups say they have caved in to pressure from the powerful tobacco lobby.

Czech MPs on Wednesday backed a proposal that owners of food serving pubs and restaurants can decide from the middle of next year whether their establishments are smoking or not.

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Finding Affordable Sushi in Prague 

I had less of a laugh at the Myslbek atrium (Pobrezni 3; Prague 8 ) only a block away, home to one of five Sushi Point locations. When I arrived, two waitresses were puffing away on their cigarettes, sitting at a customer table marked with a non-smoking sign.

Nonetheless the grilled salmon roll coated with raw salmon slices (six pieces, 395 koruna) served by the smoking waitress was outstanding, although as I was eating an employee from another concession smoked next to my table, dumping her ashes in the adjacent garbage pail. (Hint: try a different Sushi Point location).

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• Poll: Czech children worst in cigarette smoking  

Czech children are among the youths that smoke the highest number of cigarettes in the world, the daily Lidove noviny (LN) wrote on Wednesday, citing the latest survey of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) based on data from 2005-2006.

Nearly one qarter of 15-year-old Czech girls (23 percent) smoke regularly, which is the second highest number in the world, with the neighbouring Austria being the worst.

Among 15-year old Czech boys, one fifth (20 percent) smoke regularly. The situation is worse only in Austria, Finland and Hungary.

In Sweden and the United States, the number of smokers among children is three times lower than in the Czech Republic, the survey shows.

"The Czechs have figured in top positions in similar surveys for a long time. This is a result of the general atmosphere in society that still does not consider smoking among youths a serious problem," Zdenek Dienstbier, head of the Cancer League organisation, told the paper.

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Czech Philip Morris AGM approves CZK 560/share div  

The annual shareholders meeting of Czech tobacco group Philip Morris CR (TABKsp.PR) approved a 560 crown ($27.74) per share dividend on Wednesday, Czech news agency CTK reported.

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Hamish Champ: Smiling and smoking in the Czech Republic 

Three years ago I undertook my first ever brewery tour when along with members of the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers I was shown round the Budweiser Budvar brewery in the Czech Republic.

Last week I was a guest of the nice people from Budvar for a second time . . .

What I am sure of though is that after sitting in a series of smoky bars for several hours - the Republic has yet to ban smoking in its pubs - I realise and appreciate the difference a smoking ban has on my own ability to breathe clearly.

Waking up after a night out in Ceske Budjovice my non-smoking lungs were wheezing like an old steam engine on its last legs, my hacking cough a fitting testament to the dozen or so fags-worth of secondhand smoke I must have inhaled during my time in a number of hostelries.

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Czech September Inflation Rate Rises, Led by Tobacco (Update2)  

The Czech inflation rate rose in September, driven by tobacco products, in what economists say is a temporary surge before it drops to the central bank's target as expected. . . .

Rising the most were prices of tobacco products that increased 4.6 percent from the previous month due to the delayed impact of an excise tax boost.

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Czech July Inflation Rate Rises on Gas, Tobacco (Update2)  

Czech inflation accelerated in July for the first time in six months on higher prices for natural gas, cigarettes and vacation packages. . . .

cigarette prices rose 2.1 percent as producers began to run out of stocks built up before the excise tax on tobacco was raised in January.

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MfD: Philip Morris raises cigarette prices 

Philip Morris, the biggest cigarette producer on the Czech market, has kicked off a cigarette price hike in the Czech Republic, raising its prices by Kc8 per pack, the daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) wrote Tuesday.

Other producers are likely to follow, MfD writes.

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Czech Cigarette Maker Reflects Higher Tax in Prices, Dnes Says 

Philip Morris CR AS has started to reflect a January increase in the Czech excise tax by raising prices of cigarettes, Mlada Fronta Dnes reported.

Imperial Tobacco CR, Philip Morris's competitor, expects to raise its retail prices by the end of September

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• Night & Day: No butts about it 

The Association of Restaurants and Hotels in the Czech Republic recently announced that more than 260 non-smoking establishments are now operating in Prague — a sign of either progress or Californication, depending on one’s perspective.

However, if you ask the Česká Koalice Proti Tabáku (Czech Coalition Against Tobacco), and exclude coffee shops and Internet cafés from your request, the number plummets to something like 49. And many of those, such as Ambiente on Mánesova and Ferdinanda near the museum, merely cordon off a nonsmoking section.

Nothing wrong with that approach, but it hardly suggests a trend. There are, however, a few very good and completely (or largely) smoke-free places in town. A sampling:

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• Czechs spend more on tobacco, alcohol than on health  

Czechs spend more on tobacco, alcohol and other unhealthy habits than on the protection of their health, according to a report on health care worked out within the Round table project and released.

Czechs do not like cash payments in health care apart from their health insurance.

"People expect that all their health problems to be solved by somebody else and desirably for free if they pay health insurance," Stanislav Vachek, analyst of the Round table on the future of the health care system's funding project.

In EU countries, households spend two to five percent of their budget on health.

Czech households spent 1.5 times more on tobacco, alcohol and other unhealthy habits than on health.

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Tobacco May Be Harmful to Your Intelligence ($$) 

When politicians warn that smoking bans will hurt businesses, don’t bother asking them for proof.

You have reached a premium content area of TOL [p]

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• Quarter of Czechs steadily smoking - survey  

Prague- Some one-quarter of Czechs are smokers and the proportion has remained unchanged over the past decade, according to a survey conducted by the State Health Institute (SZU) last year and unveiled by Ladislav Csemy from the Prague Psychiatric Centre today.

In 2007, smokers accounted for 26.6 percent of the total Czech population, while the figure was 26.2 percent ten years ago, Csemy said.

Some 3.4 percent of Czechs smoke occasionally, he added.

The figures are to highlight the World No Tobacco Day 2008 to be held on May 31.

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