Guernsey Smoking-Free by 2040

If a Guernsey campaign group are successful, they say Guernsey could be free from any smokers by 2040. GASP want the island to follow countries who have already set targets for stamping out smoking completely.

The group believes curbing the use of tobacco so that the island becomes smoke-free will have the single greatest significant impact on public health.

Finland and New Zealand have already set themselves the goal of being smoke-free by 2040 and GASP believe it is an achievable aim in Guernsey.

Over the past 15 years the number of adults and young people who smoke in the island has significantly reduced - and 81% of people in Guernsey are non-smokers.

Attitudes to smoking have also hardened, especially among young people. In the recent Guernsey Young Peoples survey 97% of primary school pupils (87% of secondary and post-16 pupils) answered no when asked if it is OK for adults to smoke around children.

The group is confident Guernsey can set its own destiny in a way other communities cannot do. Key to this is that the island has its own legislation to establish its own legal framework for tobacco controls.

Guernsey introduced tobacco-controlling legislation ahead of the United Kingdom in areas such as the ban of smoking in enclosed public places, the age at which young people cannot purchase tobacco and restrictions on advertising.

2040 might be 30 years away but GASP believes the Guernsey community need to make immediate preparations and that the following six step plan should be introduced:

Step One - As part of the deliberation of the 2020 vision debate HSSD should undertake a review of the full costs to Guernsey of tobacco.

Step Two - The HSSD and other key stakeholders in the community should debate whether they wish to support GASPs call to make Guernsey smoke-free by 2040.

Step Three - If there is an endorsement of the smoke-free commitment Guernsey should support those international organisations that are proposing the goal of 2040 for a world essentially free from tobacco, where less than 5% of people use tobacco. This would include support at the UN high-level meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases to be held in New York and support for the implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). FCTC will ensure a world-wide approach to tobacco control.

Step Four - Increased liaison with counties such as New Zealand and Finland to share strategies for introducing a smoke-free community by 2040.

Step Five - The establishment of a smoke-free Guernsey by 2040 group whose aim is to report back periodically on the progress to the 2040 target.

Step Six - Presentation of the legislation to the States of Deliberation to continue to protect Guernsey from the perils of smoking and second-hand smoke. The priority will be the introduction to ban smoking in cars where children are passengers.

It was only a few years ago that people in the islands and across the world were smoking in public places that would seem absurd to do so now - including hospitals, schools and pubs. Guernsey introduced a ban in public places in July 2006. A ban was introduced in England in a year later, following Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Spain introduced a public smoking ban in 2006, though allowing smaller premises to choose whether to allow smoking. France moved to bring in restrictions in 2007 in workplaces and public buildings, followed a year later by cafés and bars. As far afield as China, where one in three of all the cigarettes manufactured in the world are smoked, a ban on smoking in public was brought introduced in Beijing just before the 2008 Olympic Games.