Each year, 75,000 deaths are attributable to tobacco, ie 13% of deaths occurring in metropolitan France, including 45,000 from cancer. To encourage smokers to quit, the departmental committees of the League against cancer have been mobilizing for several years to develop tobacco-free public spaces. Thus, despite the difficulties linked to successive confinements, the departmental committees of the League against cancer, itself supported by funding from the Addictions Fund, inaugurated more than 683 new “Tobacco-free spaces” (beaches, parks, areas surrounding groups. schools, multisports grounds, public gardens, etc.) in 2020.
Since 2012, the League has therefore contributed to labeling 3,730 “Tobacco-free spaces” in 48 departments, in order to limit the opportunities to smoke and thus reduce tobacco experimentation and the entry into smoking of young people. “At the start of the school year, the University of Strasbourg (67) will become the first tobacco-free campus in France, labeled by the League against cancer,” said the League in a press release.
In Paris, 10% of green spaces without tobacco
These taba-free spaces also aim to preserve the environment. “Each year, nearly 30 billion cigarette butts are thrown in the streets of France, including 350 tons just for Paris. Each of these butts contains thousands of chemicals, but also plastics. A cigarette butt alone pollutes 500 liters of water and takes more than 10 years to degrade in nature. The cost of collection borne by communities, financed by local taxes, is estimated at 38 euros per inhabitant and per year “recalls the League against the Cancer.
Since 2018, the city of Paris has been experimenting with tobacco-free parks in some fifty green spaces in the capital. “This device has made it possible to reduce the number of smokers present in these parks and of cigarette butts thrown on the ground. Smokers and non-smokers have shown themselves to be receptive, aware of the challenges of public health and of improving the living environment” affirms Pénélope Komitès, Deputy Mayor of Paris in charge of green spaces. 10% of the capital’s green spaces have thus become non-smoking areas.
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