aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Europeans get serious about smoking

Exchange students arrived from Spain with this cigarette pack. They say the law was passed a few years ago requiring the explicit warnings. It’s in english because they bought this pack at the airport.

Doug’s just back from a study abroad program in Germany, where smoking bans are beginning to take hold. And counter advertising (sponsored by cigarette companies?) urges the public to be kind to smokers.

Remember: Stephen Dubner points to Harvard economists Ed Glaeser and David Cutler on Why Europeans Smoke More Than Americans:

“Almost one-half of the smoking difference,” they write, “appears to be the result of differences in beliefs about the health effects of smoking; Europeans are generally less likely to think that cigarette smoking is harmful.” This is an intriguing argument, to say the least.

And apparently one that’s losing ground.