People still smoke in bars notwithstanding a ban introduced eight years ago, according to more than a third of Maltese respondents to a recent Eurobarometer survey.
The results of the survey, published in Brussels yesterday on World No Tobacco Day, confirm an investigation by The Sunday Times last December when journalists found people smoking in five out of six bars they visited in Paceville.
Five hundred Maltese respondents were polled by Misco in March and 35 per cent of them said people were regularly smoking in bars that they had visited in the preceding six months. The ban seems to be much more respected in restaurants. In fact, only nine per cent of Maltese respondents said they witnessed smoking in eating places.
The data show that 27 per cent of Maltese respondents smoke regularly and another 17 per cent used to smoke but quit. The majority, 56 per cent, said they never touched a cigarette in their life.
Among the smoking population, one per cent preferred pipes and another one per cent lit cigars daily.
The survey confirms that smokers normally fall into the vice at a very young age.
The majority of Maltese smokers, 56 per cent, said they started lighting up when they were still under 18 and another 28 per cent started smoking at an even younger age, below 15. Only three per cent said they started puffing away after they were 25.
Despite the habit, smokers seem to be very conscious of the damage they are causing to their health, so much so that 72 per cent of smokers said they had tried to quit, 25 per cent in the preceding 12 months.
On an EU-wide level, the survey reveals that 28 per cent of the EU’s population smoke regularly, with the majority lighting an average 14.2 cigarettes a day. Half of the EU population said they had never smoked and 61 per cent of smokers have already tried to quit.
It is estimated that, in the EU, smoking accounts to 700,000 premature deaths every year.
The European Commission is working on the revision of the Tobacco Products Directive aimed at introducing further control measures.