The latest available data on smoking rates in Spain shows that approximately 30% of adults between 15-64 are current smokers. Every year 55,000 people in Spain die from illnesses caused by tobacco; such as lung cancer, pulmonary emphysema or heart attacks, and of them, some 1,000 have never actually smoked.
Click below to read the letter:
In English: Less Harm: international declaration for a smoke-free Spain (PDF)
In Spanish: Less Harm: declaración internacional por una España sin Humo (PDF)
A well-funded and prohibition-only tobacco control group does its utmost to disregard any tobacco harm reduction efforts, and its results are not good.
Clive Bates (Counterfactual Consulting Ltd) has written a blog post and uploaded a 2-minute video about this titled: A powerful declaration makes a compelling case for tobacco harm reduction
So this is a call for the government to reflect more on the opportunity to do better through tobacco harm reduction.
Kudos goes to Carmen Escrig who worked tirelessly to coordinate these efforts, and to a group called Plataforma para la reducción del daño por tabaquismo.