Madrid.- The Spanish Government approved this Tuesday the preliminary draft of the anti-tobacco law that equates electronic cigarettes and vapes to conventional tobacco, in which smoking is prohibited on terraces, beaches, swimming pools, or bus stops, and restricts the sale of new products to specialized establishments.
The Council of Ministers gave the green light to the text, which will now begin its parliamentary processing in Congress and which reforms the first anti-tobacco law of 2005, to adapt legislation to new tobacco-related products and strengthen the protection of children and adolescents.
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The Spanish Minister of Health, Mónica García, detailed in a press conference that smoking causes 50,000 deaths per year and this regulation aims to better protect public health and move towards a “tobacco-free” generation.
The future law will equate legislation for conventional tobacco to electronic cigarettes, nicotine pouches, herbal-based products such as ‘hookahs’, and any device that mimics or is associated with the act of smoking.
And it extends smoke-free spaces to chauffeur-driven transport vehicles, the exteriors of healthcare, educational, university, and social centers, as well as playgrounds and cultural or sports areas.
The draft bill updates the infractions, amounts, and responsibilities to adapt them to the new measures and gives manufacturers 12 months to adapt their products to the new legal framework. Fines for serious infractions will be up to 600,000 euros.
Another novelty is the express prohibition of the consumption of tobacco and other related products for those under 18 years of age, given the increase in the use of electronic cigarettes and new devices among young people aged 14 to 18.
For the hospitality industry, the law is “absurd”
In light of this, the president of the hospitality employers’ association Hostelería de España, José Luis Álvarez, stated that he finds it “absurd that the most touristic country in Europe is going to be the one to implement a smoking ban on terraces,” when it is permitted in all others on the continent with the exception of Sweden.
“We are at a moment in which Spain receives nearly one hundred million foreign tourists,” largely due to its “special appeal, where socializing in our bars and on our terraces happens all year round” thanks to the country’s “climate”; the ban, therefore, “is like shooting ourselves in the foot,” he declared.
Furthermore, he said that banning smoking on terraces will not provide a decrease in tobacco consumption, but will instead displace smokers to other outdoor locations.
In Spain, he added, “we prefer to educate our young people, to educate people so they can stop smoking, but what makes no sense is to ban smoking in a sector where on our terraces there is open air, there is respect.”
How consumption has changed since the 1st anti-smoking law
Cigarette sales in Spain in 2024 stood at 2.143 billion packs, which represents a 53.8% reduction compared to 2005, the year in which the first law prohibiting smoking in enclosed spaces was approved, a regulation that came into force in January 2006.
According to data from the Ministry of Finance, 4.634 billion packs of 20 cigarettes were sold in Spain in 2005, a figure that fell by 2.81% in 2006 with that first regulation, which included the regulation, sale, supply, consumption, and advertising of tobacco products.
