Glad to usher in a new year and, with it, the beginning of smoke-free hotels, bars and restaurants in Paris. But, as this BBC article explains, Paris is not the only place to take on new year resolutions. Eight German states, including Berlin and heavy drinking Bavaria, have now taken on a similar ban, with three more to follow during the year. The subject has evidently taken on a different spin in Germany where enforcement will be somewhat more lenient than in France due to, what I have to imagine are mediatised, links with Hitler’s Nazi regime’s crackdown on smoking. In France, the “leniency” was accorded all the way to the end of January 1st, 2008.

After reading up on the smoking bans, I was interested in the smoking populations in Europe and per the BBC site, it says that 45% of the adult population in Greece is smoking. Naturally, the more painful number would be evaluating how that statistic translates into children smoking. Of the 13.5 million smokers in France, as cited in the BBC article, how many are not adults (I hesitate to use the word kids)?

Thanks mostly to wiki, I have calculated that there are just over 50 million 18+ years olds in metropolitan France. Then, if one were (mistakenly) to take the 13.5 million as all being adults, that would give France a 27% adult smoking ratio (I assume an adult is still considered 18+). Double checking what statistics I could find on adult smokers, I discovered this NationMaster site, whose source is the World Health Organization, which claimed a wholly different picture, with 34.5% of smoking adults in France — and this is only marginally less than the 35% cited for Germany (in line with the BBC’s “one third of Germans” who smoke). The worldwide weighted average of adults smoking is 27.5% per the NationMaster site. For good reading, try the Herald Tribune’s article on the Future of the [smoking] Cafe Society [broken link]!

Stateside, Chicago has also just put in place a revised no-smoking inside law to usher in the new year, too — this new law was to snuff out loopholes. There are just 23 states in the US that have imposed on indoor smoking. That is quite surprising to me.

Anyway, Happy New Year, Health and Happiness to all smokers and non-smokers alike.

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