95

from here, but since it may not stay up as long as i’d like…


Bhutan Bans Smoking in World First
Fri Dec 17, 6:04 AM ET

GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) – The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan banned smoking in public and tobacco sales on Friday, the first country in the world to do so.

The ban by the reclusive, predominantly Buddhist state follows a decision by its national legislature in July to curb smoking to promote national well-being.

“A total ban on the sale and smoking of tobaccos has been imposed in the country from December 17,” said Lily Wangchuk, a spokeswoman at Bhutan’s embassy in New Delhi.

“It is for the well-being of the people, to protect the environment and preserve our culture,” she told Reuters.

People who cannot kick the habit can import tobacco for personal use, but at a 100 percent tax. They can only smoke indoors in the privacy of their homes.

Shops and businesses defying the ban face fines starting at $225, a steep amount by Bhutan’s standards, and repeat violators would risk losing commercial licenses.

Bhutanese officials said only an estimated one percent of the country’s 700,000 people smoked or used tobacco. The loss to tobacco businesses was not immediately known.

Bhutan, sandwiched between India and China, is governed by a monarchy which believes in tight controls.

The tiny country, home to breathtaking mountains and scenic valleys, restricts foreign tourists to avoid the erosion of its culture. Television was banned until 1999 for the same reason.

The ban was not expected to be opposed, one commentator said.

“People won’t go against the order because they follow what the monarchy says,” said Kinley Dorji, editor of Kuensel, Bhutan’s only newspaper.

But residents of Samdrup Jhongkhar, a Bhutanese town near the Indian border, were not so sure. They said smokers were upset by the ban and predicted that cigarettes would be smuggled in from India.

“I will now have to pay more to smoke. It will become a luxury,” said Prem Dorji, a Samdrup Jhongkhar resident. “Common people will be worst hit as they won’t be able to give up the habit easily and will be forced to pay exorbitant prices.”


i wonder what it would take to emigrate to bhutan. from what i understand, they’re not particularly fond of “foreigners”, but neither am i (speaking of “foreign” thought patterns: the war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on intellectualism, etc.). it’s a buddhist monarchy, too, which means that they’re constrained from participation in more conventional wars… i believe christian evangelism is illegal there, as well.

5 thoughts on “95”

  1. That’s valid for the US. However, for a country that has banned both foreign tourism and television, I’m guessing there isn’t exactly a surplus of scientists. There might not be any. The government probably has a smaller total budget than many medium size companies. I was reading recently about the government of Chad, in Africa. Their whole governmental budget is $100 million. The budget of the university I’m at is somewhere around $250 million, annually, for around 10,000 faculty, staff, and students. I’m not saying that the government isn’t oppressive; I have no idea. However, it may just be working very hard to keep out the first world, and live in an earlier time. And while the merits of that decision can certainly be debated, they are not necessarily bad.

  2. Although, this sound idealistic there are too many things wrong with it. Any country leadership that imposes such things is imposing CONTROLS under the guise of health and wellbeing and using anything as an excuse. If that country really cared about it’s citizens there are many other alternatives. First of all, they could have scientists easily come up with an alternate to tobacco and nicotine, then introduce it to help people slowly ease off of tobacco products and onto something that would work just as well for them. People need things such as tobacco, alcohol, pot, food, etc to help them deal with the world around them. What they don’t need is more and more restrictions. Our country here has increased the taxes so high on tobacco products, thinking this would stop people from smoking so much or from starting to smoke to begin with, IT HASN’T WORKED. Nothing that is forced under controls will stop anything. There’s a missing key here, it is called compassion. When the governments remove themselves from the lives of people and only focus on the laws to protect the innocent and so on, the people will then realize for themselves how much they won’t need these “crutches” to support their crumbling world in which they live. I also hate it when any government tries to deny any type of belief system. WE ARE CONSTANTLY BEING CONTROLLED, MANIPULATED AND HANDLED. When will it ever stop??? When we stand together and make it stop, with the use of a pureness of spiritual heart and unconditional acceptance. THE KEY IS BETWEEN THE HANDS – IT IS THE HEART.

  3. it’s not likely that 1st world countries will ban tobacco. there’s too much money to be made on it…

    although i was really amused the other day, when a star trek – DS9 episode showed where the three main ferengis from the station (quark, nog and rom) accidentally found themselves in the mid-20th century, and they were saying really interesting things about the humans who “deliberately poison themselves” with tobacco and nuclear energy…

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