Need a Place to Puff? Hint: Grab Your Passport

By Jill Smolowe

When France's stiff antismoking laws took effect in late 1992, people girded for some of the nastiest civil unrest since the storming of the Bastille. Smokers, who represent more than one-third of all Frenchmen over age 12, cried "Egalite! Liberte!" and vowed to puff on. They should have saved their breath for the next cigarette. Despite laws that severely restrict the number of public places where French smokers are allowed to puff their Gauloises, they continue to light up with impunity virtually everywhere. Designated nonsmoking areas in offices and restaurants are routinely ignored, as are curbs in public transport stations: butts account for three of the 20 tons of garbage collected daily in the Paris Metro. To date, only one citizen has been prosecuted for smoking -- and he was hauled before a judge only after he ignored requests to leave a cafeteria's nonsmoking area, then threw a pitcher of water, injuring a five-year-old.

The disjuncture between law and practice may be extreme in France, but it is not unique. Around the world, legislators have followed the U.S. lead in trying to stub out tobacco by restricting smoking areas, banning or limiting cigarette ads, imposing steep taxes and issuing ominous health warnings. But with a few notable exceptions, such as in Singapore and Australia, cultural attitudes and habits have largely quashed such efforts. Foreigners, who seem only too eager to inhale most aspects of American culture, regard the U.S. obsession with smoking as overwrought. "The whole thing," sniffs German teacher Waltraud Gruneisl, "borders on mass psychosis."

That's not to say that antismoking efforts have been negligible. Bans in public buildings, cinemas, hospitals and schools are in effect -- and widely ineffective -- throughout Asia and Europe. On the theory that impressionable youths learn by example, Singapore's military personnel are not permitted to smoke in public, and teachers in the United Arab Emirates are hounded by health officials to quit the habit outright. In India, which has the world's highest incidence of oral cancer (largely due to tobacco chewing and the popularity of smoking beedis, a rolled leaf filled with tobacco), the smoking characters in Hindi films and soap operas are almost always bad guys. Cigarette ads have been banned from television in most countries and from the print media in many. Even in South America, where antismoking zeal has yet to catch fire, Colombia and Brazil restrict TV ads for cigarettes to "adult" viewing hours.

But where there's a profit to be made, there's a way. In Europe, Asia and South America, cigarette manufacturers get around advertising restrictions by sponsoring cultural and sporting events that keep their product names in the public eye. In Hungary manufacturers have simply calculated that the $100 fine for running print ads is an endurable slap on the wrist when compared with the sales stimulated by such advertising. Ditto for many French restaurateurs, who would rather risk an unlikely complaint and the attendant $1,035 fine than shell out more than $4,000 to install required smoke-ventilation devices. To date, only one proprietor -- Simone Puigcercos, who owns the Auberge Bavaroise in Bordeaux -- has been nabbed for turning away a client who demanded to be seated in a nonsmoking section. "It's my restaurant, after all, and I can do as I like," says Puigcercos, who awaits a court hearing. Other owners are even more brazen. Paris' chic Le Pichet has posted a sign: RESTAURANT IS RESERVED FOR SMOKERS. NONSMOKERS ACCEPTED.

Governments that rely on income generated by the cigarette industry are particularly disinclined to crack down. In Indonesia, where a breathless 64% of the adult population smokes, officials counter health lobbyists' appeals for bans with harsh numbers: an antismoking campaign could threaten 20 million jobs. At a time when India is slashing levies on many items as part of a general economic liberalization, New Delhi is increasingly dependent on cigarette excise taxes. Similarly, while China officially frowns on smoking, little is being done to curb an industry that generated $5.26 billion in profits in 1992. Of that, $4.8 billion went to the state in taxes.

Some governments fear that escalating health costs will outpace such profits. But they must do battle with U.S. cigarette manufacturers, who have shifted their sights abroad to make up for lost ground back home. American companies have trained a particularly keen eye on Russia and Eastern Europe, snapping up tobacco-production plants in Hungary and the Czech Republic and hungrily coveting the six state factories in Poland. In the decade since Japan reluctantly opened its market to foreign cigarette brands, three U.S. companies have captured 17.5% of the market. Bungaku Watanabe, who heads the country's 100,000-strong antismoking lobby, calls U.S. tobacco exports to Asia "another Opium War."

While the Opium War lasted only three years in the 19th century, the Smoking War is likely to continue for decades. Seductive profits, entrenched habits and widespread illiteracy, which militates against public education, all pose obstacles. Human frailty is also no small hurdle. China's advertising ban can hardly compete with old photographs of Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping blithely puffing away. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at least practices what he preaches. In February the Israeli parliament passed legislation that would have banned smoking in the workplace. But Rabin, who chain-smokes his way through weekly Cabinet meetings, did not want to be a hypocrite. He refused to sign it.

With reporting by Sandra Burton/Hong Kong and Bruce Crumley/Paris, with other bureaus