YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. The Cabinet has approved the bill on amending the law on Reducing and Preventing Health Hazards as a Result of Tobacco Product and Tobacco Substitute Usage.

Speaking at the Cabinet meeting today Healthcare Minister Arsen Torosyan said that the bill has been debated for nearly a year and that certain clauses of it will come into force later, by 2024.

The bill envisages banning smoking in closed areas and gradually also in semi-enclosed ones. Certain restrictions are envisaged in public transportation, children’s playing grounds and in healthcare, educational and cultural facilities. Certain regulations are envisaged also in the direction of promotion and advertisements and sale of tobacco products.  I am convinced that these legislative changes will lead to a mass cultural change among the population to respect one another’s right to be healthy and to appreciate it. And now is the very time, it is late but we can’t delay it anymore as to what kind of a country we want to pass down to our children: healthy and developed or ill and having difficulties,” Torosyan said, calling on restaurants to voluntarily adopt a smoke-free policy.

PM Nikol Pashinyan said the objective is to give certain time to businesses, something the bill envisages. He also noted that his government has the least number of smokers compared to all previous ones.

“80% of the Cabinet members are non-smokers. And it was very pleasant to record that 100% of the governors don’t smoke, we don’t know the situation in the law enforcement sector. The Police Chief doesn’t smoke , the National Security Service Director smokes secretly. I think this is also an important indicator, and who if not our government should make this kind of a decision. By the way, for the record the majority were smokers. I myself used to smoke for many years but I eventually quit,” the PM said.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan