Russia's chief sanitary doctor Gennady Onishchenko called for tough anti smoking measures, including bans in public places, on streets and in restaurants. He also sharply criticized the tobacco industry, comparing tobacco sellers to killers, and said Western experience shows such limits work. According to him, the ban will not hurt restaurants and could lead to stricter tobacco limits, up to a total ban on advertising and discussion of banning cigarette production and sales.

Russia’s Chief Sanitary Doctor Gennady Onishchenko is in favor of introducing “draconian” measures to combat smoking. In particular, he wants to ban smoking in public places, including on the street and in restaurants.
Onishchenko also called representatives of the tobacco industry an “association of killers.” “Tobacco people are the same killers, only on a different scale. Some carry out individual orders, while these carry out population orders. And the population is Russians,” he said.
As the chief sanitary doctor noted, in the West, restricting smoking in public places has led to positive results. In Onishchenko’s view, after this ban is introduced, no one will feel bad. Gennady Onishchenko guarantees that not a single restaurant will go bankrupt because of this. “Europe has gone through this; not a single kiosk in Europe was overturned,” said the head of Rospotrebnadzor.
Onishchenko suggested following the example of the West, where, in addition to a sharp restriction on smoking in public places, a complete ban on tobacco advertising has been introduced in recent years, especially at sporting events. As Onishchenko assured, in Europe there is now a very serious discussion about a complete ban on the production, sale, and consumption of tobacco products.
It should be noted that Gennady Onishchenko has not spoken out so sharply against tobacco manufacturers for the first time. Thus, last year he accused them of “nicotine genocide.” At that time, he proclaimed a new round of confrontation “with the cynical Russian tobacco sinecure, which has lost all moral norms, rules, criteria, and principles and is in the service of foreign, and above all American, capital.”