SMOKING PROBLEM IN SWITZERLAND 

Notes - 2008, 2009, 2010

Dear Fr. Ruttimann

Thank you for the information.
Here's my site www.rezamusic.com
There's an anti-smoking section on my site.
I really think Canton Aargau should legislate more strict rules against smoking in order to protect non smoker. Places like < >  or < >  are jokes.
< > serves drinks to the people constantly going in and out the smoking door. I don't go there regularly but just went in to inspect it once.
< >  has 2 smoking rooms -- both doors open to the non smoking room and both doors are constantly open.
The manager at 10:30 pm on 22 May told me the doors stay open and when a customer has a problem they can close the doors. And we all know how un-Swiss it is to complain!
One of the smoking rooms is constantly connected with the non smoking room through the bar which serves both rooms and aside from staff going through it regularly the smoke also freely travels, and not to say that to leave the place, the smokers have to open their cancer-room's door to the non smoking room. So this is really not working. Aargau should follow many other world-class places and prohibit all indoor smoking.

I understand you have 15 inspectors for the entire canton and the penalty is first a warning and then litigation in which the court will decide the penalty. If you have the full text of the law, I would really appreciate if you could email it to me.

Thanks and Best Regards
Reza Ganjavi 

15 May 2010

- The new non smoking rules in Switzerland are unbelievable -- nobody thought it would happen -- but still, long way to go. The places of heavy smoke still reek and are toxic -- maybe it will take a year for it to get less toxic. One place I went into has a smoking section separated by a door and a connected bar that freely allows the smoke to travel (like piss in swimming pool). 

- Cinemas for 14 and over show advertisement for cigarettes. Shame !! Big Tobacco drug pushers still have a lot of power here. 

2010-Feb:

Dr. Thomas Cerny, professor of medical oncology at Bern University and head of oncology at St Gallen Cantonal Hospital

There is a chance of avoiding roughly 40 per cent of cancers and that’s by avoiding smoking, smoking, smoking - active and passive. It’s also avoiding sunburn, exercising daily and it’s obviously also what we eat. We have to be careful, avoiding massive intakes of alcohol and so on.

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It's February 2010 and the most cunning pro-smoking ad shows up in the morning free paper thousands read include many youngsters. Shame!!

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Dear Swiss Federal Council

I read in the newspaper in Zurich that restaurant owners are lobbying you to delay the May 1 2010 smoking ban.

Please take notice that there was a large survey done in the US some time ago which indicated with statistical significance that restaurants did not lose business after they became non smoking.

Any request for a delay is only an excuse and nothing justifies the backward practice of letting people smoke in public places where others do not have a choice but to inhale the second hand poison. The restaurant owners should be thinking more about their employees' and their customers' health than worrying about their profits. And the current way of having a "non smoking section" in Swiss restaurants is a joke because smoke travels.

Recently I was at a company party. We had a non smoking exclusive room at a restaurant and still, at the end of the night our clothes were stinking from smoke because people in other rooms smoked. It's time Switzerland start putting the interest of its citizens ahead of interest of Big Tobacco. The Swiss bus and tram stops are like ashtrays. It's a shame how many Swiss kids smoke. I see it regularly. I also see massive advertising to brain wash these kids to become addicts so Big Tobacco can benefit. These kids grown into addict adults who suffer every day. 97% of people who want to stop smoking don't stop. That means they suffer. Government cares about people wearing their seat belt but not if they suffer in their home and make others suffer with second hand smoke.

Congratulations for the smoking ban. Please make sure it goes into effect on May 1. Switzerland can not afford a day of delay.

You can read accounts of my many discussions about dangers of smoking with youngsters on the no-smoking section of my website: www.rezamusic.com

All good wishes
Reza Ganjavi
<adr>
PS -- I play classical guitar and would love to play for your events. I also have a wonderful new band with some Swiss friends and we'd be happy to perform for you: www.rezangela.com

Dear Mr. Meyer [CEO, SBB]

Switzerland has come a long way in protecting its people from getting exposed, involuntarily, to hundreds of poisons in the air by inhaling second-hand (passive) smoke.
It took a lot of lobbying on my and other people's part to get SBB to make Swiss trains non-smoking years after several other European countries took this action. I suppose our lobby was up against pressure on the part of Big Tobacco to take no action. Anyway, congratulations to SBB for that and for making Zurich HB's underground platforms smoke-free and making waiting rooms non-smoking, items which I and others lobbied for.

Next health-related problem to tackle is smoking in ticket lines which should be forbidden. Every sensible person knows smoking in ticket lines when people ahead and before you are hurt, is not right, but many people do it and their excuse is that it is not forbidden. I have also heard from ticket agents that they are bothered by people who smoke while they are at the counter.

Lastly, you may want to consider making indoor stations non-smoking like they have in many countries.
Thanks for your attention to this matter.
Kind Regards
Reza Ganjavi

- Another sad story of a smoker enslaved to the Tobacco mafia. Every bit of the story is sad, boring and pathetic. I am tired of talking with smokers, specially older ones. But I tried -- the main theme being: attention. It's a sad vicious circle of cig making the body feel miserable and then smoking to combat the misery which is disgusting and hopeless. And this government, oldest democracy in the world, is not doing anything fundamental about it -- they must love the cigarette tax.  Yesterday, walking into Balgrist in Zurich, world class hospital, it stunk from cigarette smoke.  Go shopping in Coop in Tagipark, huge supermarket, and you have no choice, whether you're young or old, sick or healthy, child or adult, to inhale poison gas upon entering the store, and the pathetic explanation of the company has been: when it's mandated by law, we will make our restaurant non-smoking. Hello!? Migro's, another chain, already made their restaurants non-smoking. Why can't Coop? Fear of  losing the revenue of coffee or whatever that the slaves of the Tobacco mafia consume? Even the Green party bats for smokers. What could you expect from the Conservatives then?    [copied to smoking file, smoking-swiss file, Green party members, the fine gentleman CEO of Coop, and a few other members of Coop].

Best Wishes for a Wonderful and Good 2009
Reza Ganjavi
www.rezamusic.com
www.rezajournal.com
www.rezangela.com
www.rezatv.com