Public Smoking and Cigarette Sales are prohibited in Bhutan
Published on October 5, 2009 2:06 PM
If you are a regular cigarette smoker, you know that in Iowa, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, California, Maryland, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Arizona, Illinois, Delaware, and Washington and other states across the United States have all approved statewide comprehensive bans on smoking in public areas. In several other states the imposed bans were partial. Even in the remaining states that have not introduced statewide bans, smokers anyway are unwelcome in many cities and counties, where local lawmakers passed public smoking bans as well.
If smoking is banned in your state or locality you have an option of moving to another state, where no smoking restrictions are imposed. It also can be a nice option for those heavy smokers, who reside in the states that introduced hefty cigarette taxes, like it is for instance, in Florida, Rhode Island or New York.
That seems be a great alternative for American smokers eager to continue puffing in public places or pay less taxes. However, there are countries where smokers have no options or opportunities. According to Jessie Burrows of National Geographic in Bhutan smokers have to give up puffing without any options. It happened because the Bhutan Government recently passed the statewide ban on smoking. According to the corresponding law smoking in public buildings and sales of cigarettes and other tobacco products are banned. Any individual caught on smoking, selling or buying tobacco would be charged with misdemeanor and subject to pay a hefty fine of as much as $232. In case you think that the fine is not that much, you have to know that the average salary in Bhutan is nearly $100. Thus, it is an enormous sum of money for Bhutanese. Simply imagine that you would have to fork up $5000 for smoking in a smoke shop. Not that bad, isn’t it?
Back in 1972, Jigme Singye Wangchuck the then king of Bhutan, impressed the rest of the world by implementing the policy based on Gross National Happiness. Till the current moment of time there is no clear definition for that term, however GNH can be defined as an attempt to identify the life quality in more integral and rather abstract terms than such generally accepted standards of life quality as Gross Domestic Product. The major aim of Gross National Happiness policy was to convince people that mental and social wellbeing is more important than economy statistics. However, it is clear that Bhutan legislators have ignored the fact that cigarettes make a dramatic part of emotional wellness of at least some of the citizens.
Many Bhutanese are devastated and desperate about the countrywide restrictions. Many are whispering complaints and curses, because they simply can’t believe that they will never have cigarette.
"The officials have simply deprived us of our right to light up cigarettes, and we have nothing to do with that," said a person who asked to conceal his name, since he was afraid of losing his job at one of three Bhutan internet providers.
The Bhutan authorities are now considering passing a ban on the use of electronic cigarettes, because of the rise of their popularity across the country. The Health Ministry claims that the countrywide smoking ban covers all products containing nicotine. Thus, the use of e-cigs should be considered as illegal
