Where do YOU buy your tobacco?

It could be said that the French and the Spanish have their tobacconists in common – in more ways than one! First of all, the French tabac and the Spanish estanco are very similar institutions. They both started off as places where tobacco and salt were sold – a surprising combination perhaps but both involving taxes which needed to be paid. As a result nowadays both places now sell postage stamps as well as cigarettes, tobacco, Zippo lighters and the rest. Almost no-one goes to the post office for stamps. What’s the point when there is an estanco on every other street corner selling stamps for letters and postcard to all destinations?

Secondly, it seems that many French people prefer to buy their cigarettes from the estanco rather than the tabac. According to an item in the newspaper La Voz de Galicia, Spain is becoming el estanco de Europa. The newspaper tells us that 36% of the tobacco sold in Spain is bought by foreigners.

So it’s not just the British tourists who stock up with cheap cigarettes before going home. The French regularly pop across the border to stock up in Spain. A couple of years ago in San Sebastián I was amazed at how often I was stopped by French tourists who asked me “Est-ce qu’il y a un hypermarché près d’ici?”! Not only did they want to buy cheap booze and cigarettes but they assumed that everyone spoke French! And people say the British are poor at languages and expect all the world to speak English!!!!

Apparently it is this cross-border shopping that keeps the province of Girona in 5th place for sales of cigarettes. The first four places go to Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Alicante. These “foreign” sales also explain, according to the newspaper, why sales of tobacco have remained stable in Spain even though the number of smokers has gone down by about one million.

One million!!! Really??? You wouldn’t think so walking through the streets of Vigo or all the other places I’ve visited recently. Not only are you at risk from passive smoking but you are in danger of being burnt by gesticulating smokers, lighted cigarette in hand! And the Comité Nacional para la Prevención del Tabaquismo may well tell me that only 27% of over 18 year olds smoke, I find it hard to believe. All I can say is that the under-18s must be smoking a lot!

Meanwhile my largely fruitless search for non-smoking bars and restaurants continues. Even though 70.6% of people here believe La Ley del Tabaco has been good for the country’s health, a European Commission survey in March shows the Spanish to be the nation most opposed to a complete ban on smoking in restaurants and leisure venues with 14% completely opposed and another 13 % partly against the idea.

I suppose this is not very surprising given that 24.9% of the population smoke and 20.8% admit to having been smokers at some time in the past. Of these 28.6% smoke/used to smoke at least a full packet every day and 8.1% smoke/used to smoke two or more packs a day. In addition, 39.6% of smokers declare they have no intention of giving up.

The anti-smoking lobby has its posters up, however, reminding us, ¡Cuando uno fuma, fumamos todos! – when one person smokes, we all smoke.

I wait with interest to see what happens to the proposed changes in La Ley del Tabaco.