Smoking After parks and then playgrounds, the city of Strasbourg will set up “tobacco-free spaces” around schools with the aim of better “protect younger generations from entering tobacco use”
The surroundings of the Neufeld school in Strasbourg are labeled “Tobacco-free spaces” — G. Varela/20 Minutes
- Strasbourg is experimenting with a “tobacco-free space” in front of the Neufeld elementary and kindergarten school.
- Accompanied by a mechanism for mediation and raising awareness of the dangers of smoking among students and parents of students, the system should soon be extended to all schools in the city.
- An initiative which complements the tobacco-free labeled spaces already in place in 123 parks and playgrounds in the city.
“Deconstructing positive representations around tobacco, those that would consist of say that “smoking is cool, that it is a symbol of freedom”. Well no! This harms health, çit also pollutes.” This is how Jeanne Barseghian, Mayor of Strasbourg, presented this Thursday a new measure, an experiment, of a “tobacco-free space” Strasbourg. It’s the first establishment where this measure is taken by the municipal team. It should be extended “very soon” all schools in the European capital. Objective: to protect the youngest from passive smoking, but also better “protect these younger generations from starting to smoke”.
A first “assessment will be made by the end of the school year”, explains Alexandre Feltz, doctor, addictologist and assistant to the school. the mayor in charge of health public and environmental. The elected official, graph in hand, underlines the importance of these preventive measures in the face of smoking that increases to again, since the confinement, during which “many people have started or recovered; smoking”.
Citing as an example a country like Canada where “These tobacco-free spaces exist, much stricter and with wider perimeters,” he is convinced, as all the studies show, that “the disappearance of tobacco in the public space is essential for the cigarette to disappear from the mental imagery of children” And to achieve this, the tobacco-free space is identified. by a display in front of the entrances to the school, accompanied by by distributing a flyer. A team of young mediators, from the faculties of medicine or pharmacy, also dialogue with the parents when entering and leaving class. A tobacco specialist will also intervene in CM2 class while health professionals city school and extracurricular officials, will relay prevention messages.
Everyone agrees
The measurement is taken at the “strong request from parents”, underlines the mayor, made in 2019. Confirmation this morning at the gates of the establishment of this consent: impossible for us to find parents of students who disagree with this experiment. “Passive smoking even more dangerous for toddlers” , “Risk of burns”, “Bad smoking message in front of them”” The arguments heard at the hour of re-entry would have pleased the League against cancer, whose president of Bas-Rhin, Gilbert Schneider, had made the trip for the occasion.
The mayor of Strasbourg Jeanne Barseghian (in yellow) and her deputy Alexandre Feltz in front of the Neufeld school in Paris. Strasbourg November 17, 2022 – G. Varela/20 Minutes
At most, the grievances heard on Thursday related to other expectations, such as obtaining additional teachers, the end of dog droppings around school, leashing, even their prohibition, dogs at the time of return and departure, the stoppage of the removal of hiking trails in the forest of Illkirch-Graffenstaden… Side tobacco, smokers, occasional or not, approve of this measure, even “if there is no need to regulate everything”, because “it is self-evident to not no smoking when there are children”.
A device that finally makes sense to everyone. Strasbourg, a pioneering city in terms of smoking prevention. Remember that she was the first from 2018 in generalize the ban on smoking in all the parks and playgrounds of the city while leading in situ to; awareness-raising and “tobacco mediation” actions. Today at Strasbourg, 123 spaces are thus labeled “tobacco-free space”.