Smokers breathe freely - for now.
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Government officials, tobacco industry executives and anti-smoking activists alike said last week that the emphasis in Hungarian legislation on smoking should be placed on enforcing current regulations, as opposed to making them stricter. “By now, Hungarian society has accepted the recently introduced regulations on smoking, so I believe there is no point in going beyond this consensus with stricter measures,” said Mihaly Kokeny, political state secretary at the Ministry of Health, Social and Family Affairs. “Drafting new legislation or amending the current laws is not on the agenda. We will gradually increase enforcement of the current measures by increasing cooperation with consumer and labor safety protection authorities,” he added. Industry insiders are also against changing the law. “There will be a huge debate before such limitations are imposed, even though the tobacco industry is on the defensive,” said Istvan Komoroczky, spokesman for Reemtsma Debrecen Tobacco Factory Kft. “We don’t expect such measures to be introduced in Hungary in the coming years.”… |