EU launches TV spots against passive smoking

A television spot to remind people that passive smoking kills started being aired on 80 channels, including TVM, around the 27 EU countries yesterday.

The spot, part of the ongoing €72 million campaign Help For A Life Without Tobacco, depicts a young adolescent experiencing breathing difficulties in her daily activities, and shows her watching her parents smoking in the living room.

Around 19,000 European non-smokers die annually because of passive smoking, European Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianu stressed.

This has spurred the European Commission to launch the EU-wide advertising campaign to highlight the negative effects of passive smoking. "It aims to remind smokers that their habit harms their children's health as well as their own," he said.

The television campaign ties in with an e-mail and web-based campaign where smokers can get help to kick their habit.

The commission intends to publish a Green Paper on smoke-free environments shortly to launch a broad consultation process on the best way forward in tackling passive smoking in Europe.

The advert can be viewed on the commission's website http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_determinants/life_style/Tobacco/help_en.htm