Smoking ban in Austria: a long overdue step but still a lot to be done

Tobacco control in Austria has long fallen behind other high-income countries. A tradition of dominant influence of the tobacco industry, coupled with a strong resistance from tobacconists, the hospitality sector, and parts of the population, impeded for a long time, any effective, comprehensive tobacco control legislation. Five years ago, a partial smoking ban in public places that controversially granted a wide range of exceptions to the hospitality sector was introduced. Finally, on Jan 13, 2015, the coalition parties agreed to adopt a new comprehensive legislation, prohibiting smoking in all restaurants and bars by summer 2015—with more than ten years of delay compared to Ireland, Scotland, and Italy. This is indeed a welcoming move towards improving the country's public health. Evidence from other countries shows that comprehensive smoking bans substantially reduced second-hand smoke as well as smoking prevalence, and consequently cardiovascular and respiratory risks.

While the new legislation is a major milestone to be celebrated, much more should be done in Austria. Critically, the country ranked at the bottom among the 34 European countries considered in the 2013 Tobacco Control Scale, an indicator developed to quantify the implementation of tobacco control policies at country level. As a consequence, according to the latest Eurobarometer survey on tobacco, in 2012, the overall smoking prevalence in Austria (33%) was among the highest of the EU27 (average 28%). Analysing these individual-level data, we observe extremely high smoking rates among young adults (aged 18–28 years), especially men (52% vs 41% in EU27; among women 34% in Austria vs 32% in EU27). Moreover, we analysed data from a representative survey of newly unemployed young adults aged 18–28 years in Vienna, done in 2014, including 1246 participants. We noted that as many as 67% of men and 55% of women are current smokers (NS, unpublished). Unemployment can be a strong and independent determinant of smoking. The increased unemployment rates in Austria due to the economic crisis might consequently have exacerbated tobacco use in young people. Therefore, tobacco control strategies with a specific target on young people, including the increase in cigarette tax and the ban of cigarette sale to those younger than 18 years, are urgently needed in Austria—if the country is to get rid of its shameful nickname of “the ashtray of Europe”.