New Legal Challenges In Combating Smoking In Serbia And Republika Srpska
New Legal Challenges In Combating Smoking In Serbia And Republika Srpska

Summary/Abstract: The number of produced and sold tobacco products has been reduced in the USA in the past five years. Cigarette manufacturers are relocating their factories to countries in transition, which have “milder“ norms concerning smoking and the advertisement of tobacco products. With the implementation of legal norms, the state can influence the citizens’ behaviour, which can also be altered by introducing new acts, other than laws. By imposing tax on tobacco products, the state certainly obtains a considerable amount of money. On the other hand, the state allocates a large amount of money to health funds which are spent on treating patients from the effects of tobacco use. Thus a vicious circle is created, which the government cannot escape without a serious approach to the implementation of legal norms regarding smoking prohibition. There is an urgent need to introduce global legal standards on tobacco smoke. Forests are the lungs of the planet, and in some countries, such as Pakistan and Brazil, they are cut down in order to dry tobacco to such an extent that it poses a threat to entire humanity. The Law on protection of population from exposure to tobaco smoke has been passed recently, but it hasn’t yielded desired results yet. In this paper, which is based on research, the author indicates that smokers don’t regard the warnings printed on tobacco products as serious threats, but rather as part of cigarette pack design. Can the goal be reached, to protect people’s health, by enacting legal norms to ban smoking in certain premises? According to the author, the answer to this question is negative. Only the enactment of a fully binding norm by all UN member states could solve the issue of consistent protection of people from the exposure to harmful and life-threatening effects of tobacco smoke on a global level.

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