Swiss vote to ban nearly all tobacco advertising

GENEVA: Switzerland voted to tighten its notoriously weak tobacco laws by banning almost all advertising of dangerous products.

About 57% of voters and 16 of Switzerland’s 26 cantonments support an almost complete ban on tobacco advertising, the final results show.

“We are extremely happy. The people understood that health is more important than economic interests,” Stefanie De Borba of the Swiss League against Cancer, told AFP.

Switzerland lags far behind most wealthy nations in restricting tobacco advertising — a situation widely blamed on substantial lobbying by some of the world’s biggest tobacco companies headquartered in the country.

Currently, most tobacco advertising is legal at a national level, except on television and radio, and when specifically targeting minors.

Some Swiss cantons have introduced stricter regional legislation and a new national law is pending, but the campaigners who forced the issue to a vote under Switzerland’s direct democracy system demanded far tighter rules.

Opponents of the initiative, which include the Swiss government and parliament, argued that it goes too far.