2023-07-08 13:13:26
In France, it is already forbidden to smoke in a car in the presence of a minor. In Germany, this is not the case. For the moment. The German government is working on a law to ban smoking in cars in the presence of children or pregnant women. A project that annoys more than one, even within the coalition of Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The announcement of this future ban, which should be introduced in an upcoming bill to legalize cannabis, was made on Friday by Health Minister Karl Lauterbach. “Children and pregnant women need better protection in society,” the social-democratic minister explained on Twitter. “The ban on smoking in the car when traveling is a necessity. It should have been introduced earlier”, he judged, underlining the risk of “irreversible damage” in the event of passive smoking.
“There is no need for an additional ban”
But this measure does not convince the conservative opposition, nor even the liberal party FDP, yet a member of the ruling coalition. “Karl Lauterbach can happily live out his health madness in private,” castigated Kristine Lütke, spokesperson for the FDP group in the Bundestag for public health issues. “Common sense already rules out smoking in the car with minors and pregnant women – there is no need for an additional ban.”
The CDU party, the main opponent of the government with the far-right AfD formation, points to a risk of incompatibility with the Constitution. “Such a ban would be difficult to apply in practice,” adds Tino Sorge, in charge of health issues within the Christian Democratic Party. “Such a ban might not, or very little, be controlled”, adds the Association of German Motorists (Adac).
Should smoking be banned “at home”?
The Minister of Health, on the other hand, received the support of the German Cancer Research Center, recalling that according to data from 2018, around 800,000 minors are exposed to passive smoking in cars.
The Professional Association of Physicians for Children and Adolescents wants to go further. It is “urgent to ban smoking at home”, a spokesperson for the association told the newspaper Bild SATURDAY. “It is especially between the four walls of the house that children suffer the greatest damage from passive smoking”.
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