Cigarette smoking in Costa Rica is a long-honored custom, so observers are watching to see if the Tobacco Control Law will prove, as it has in other countries, that it is easier to persuade people to buy something than to avoid using it.

This week, the Ministry of Health reduced to three months the 12-month deadline covering prohibiting the sale of packs of cigarettes of less than 20. The idea is, apparently, that the 20-unit size costs more and that many do not have the ready cash to buy them, unlike the slim packs of 10.

Already, the smoking law has had an impact — but not one pleasing to President Laura Chinchilla who signed the bill into law. Smokers may not light up in public places, not even bars, but the resulting mess on sidewalks in front of taverns has prompted a call for bars to provide exterior ashtrays.

So bars, pulperias and other cigarette vendors are scrambling to sell the 10-unit-size as fast as they can. Meanwhile, the British-American Tobacco Company, the only producer in Costa Rica, has time to replenish the small boxes from its regional warehouse in Honduras.

No small packs have been manufactured since March. But even at that, the regulations signed by the President and Minister of Health Daisy Corrales has loosened up a bit to accommodate tobacco companies.

For instance, the original regulations prohibited the cigarettes from being sold in transparent dispensers died, This draconian measure was sidelined by the tobacco company claim that it violates the rights of consumers.

But the Ministry of Health is grimly adhering to its prohibition of workers being able to smoke in the open air gardens and parking lots of the workplace — even though ambient smoke pollution is zero.

Moreover, “no smoking” signs must be placed in public parks, sports areas and bus stops. Probably the most futile of the tough regulations is a call for municipalities to keep the sidewalk and gutter areas in front of bars and restaurants clear of discarded butts.

Commentary: Legislating “for their own good” is an uphill battle lost by generations of do-gooders. Ticos are an independent lot and enforcement will inevitably meet a backlash.

Tobacco addiction is a strong pull–this reporter remembers when he first read the U.S. Surgeon General’s report about tobacco use and lung cancer in the 1960s. It made him so nervous that he just had to have a cigarette!

Source: fijatevos.com