Norway’s centrist Christian Democrats party wants to toughen and expand the country’s ban on smoking that’s been in effect for the past 15 years. They want to make it illegal to light up outdoors as well as indoors.
“We want to also ban smoking in the (outdoor) places that non-smokers can’t avoid,” Olaug Bollestad, a former nurse who’s now deputy leader of the Christian Democrats, told TV2. Bollestand leads the Parliament’s health committee, and thinks it’s “high time” to expand smoking restrictions outdoors, where non-smokers are subject to passive smoking.
“That includes playgrounds, entrances to trains stations, airports, shopping centers and hospitals, places outdoors that you need to pass through,” she told TV2. She noted that Sweden is already cracking down with such proposals for new outdoor smoking bans in cafés, at busstops and playgrounds.
“We can’t let Norway be worse at this than Sweden,” she said, noting that Sweden’s government aims for the entire country to be smoke-free by 2025.
newsinenglish.no staff
