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• Falklands Set To Go Smokeless 

Cllr the Hon Mr. Ian Hansen (IH):

In rising to speak to this Motion I shall be brief as fellow Councillors have covered all the aspects, I believe. I would just like to say initially that I think it is a great shame that four Councillors aren’t here to take part in this debate as it is an important issue. I am not going to try and make any long justification as to why I should support this Motion. I guess I can say that as a non-smoker I am doing it for purely selfish reasons.

I am asthmatic as are others and to be in the company of someone smoking for any length of time is pretty uncomfortable.

I have also seen in the past friends and relatives suffered terribly from smoking related diseases. I think I would prefer or it would be preferable to see others follow the example of the Brasserie, Malvina and the Trough. But realistically I doubt, unless a smoking ban is compulsory, we shall ever see one.

As the Honourable Michael Rendell pointed out, the fact that other countries taking this step and successfully, it must give us some direction.

Mr Speaker, I support the Motion.

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• Falklands Councillors reject heavy smoking label 

Some members of the Falkland Islands Legislative Council, who are currently pondering whether or not smoking should be banned from public places in the Islands, today reacted negatively to the suggestion in a Mercopress report on this subject (Thursday 10th August) that the Falklands is “a community of heavy smokers”, something that Councillor Mike Summers referred to as “a slur on our good behaviour”.

The Falkland Islands Government Medical Department is currently carrying out a survey on the smoking habits and has circulated questionnaires to everybody over the age of sixteen on the hospital’s database.

According to Councillor Mike Rendell, who holds the Public Health Portfolio, while some 1800 of these questionnaires have not yet been returned and probably never will be, the 800 completed questionnaires received indicate that just over 24% have declared themselves as smokers.

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