The political confrontation has moved to public health issues. It's not the first time. It already happened with the pandemic in relation to the use of the mask, for example. But then, most communities were ruled by socialists. Now, with eleven autonomies in the hands of the PP, the tables have turned. And those who previously asked for progress in stopping the consumption of tobacco and its products, considering that we must stop an addiction that is behind 16 types of cancer, now ask for more time to debate a comprehensive plan against smoking, kept in a drawer. for almost two years.
It escapes few that one of the points that most confronts some and others has to do with transforming the terraces into smoke-free spaces, converted by some communities, such as that of Madrid, into an emblem of freedom. Health, for its part, is more inclined towards prohibition (also Catalonia, Asturias and the Canary Islands).
Faced with this panorama, and with the certainty that the majority of the autonomies governed by the PP (led by Madrid) were not going to give their support to the anti-smoking plan, although they all claim to be concerned about smoking, Health searched the Council's regulations Interterritorial and found that it could move forward with its anti-tobacco strategy without needing to vote.
The comprehensive plan can be approved through a collaboration agreement, to which the communities will adhere, according to Mónica García's department. At the moment only a third have joined, including Catalonia, one of the communities that has most strongly defended the need to stop smoking, according to sources from the public health commission. They will say the rest this morning at the meeting of the Interterritorial Council, although they have already made it clear that their answer is closer to no than yes because they do not agree with the system that Health has sought to carry out its proposal.
Other reasons they allege are that Health is in an excessive hurry to approve this roadmap that aims to reduce tobacco consumption and, above all, stop the incorporation of younger people into the world of tobacco (through, above all, electronic cigarettes). From Health they do not hide the rush: every year about 50,000 people die from this addiction and half a thousand passive smokers. More data: every day about 460 kids start smoking, 25% of adolescents between 12 and 13 years old have tried electronic cigarettes and 50% of minors have already started using them.
The third most used justification is that the plan does not have an economic memory, despite the fact that most plans, which establish measures to follow to achieve a series of objectives, do not have one. Health ensures that monetary and financing issues will be detailed when the corresponding regulations are developed.
Be that as it may, the reality is that although all communities reiterate their commitment against smoking, political confrontations seem to make consensus impossible (although 147 of the 157 allegations made by the communities have been incorporated into the text). But although there is no clear support, the will of the ministry led by Mónica García is to move forward with it, as the Secretary of State for Health, Javier Padilla, explained on the social network X.
Against this backdrop, scientific and medical societies signed a statement expressing their “enormous surprise at the difficulty in approving” the plan, “something incomprehensible considering that the document” was previously agreed upon during months of technical work between Health and the communities.
