Smoking in Brazil – The New French

From my own experience, smoking is a big hit in Brazil (enough to want to deem them the nouveau French) and in between the air pollution from automobiles and second-hand smoke, one can feel the need to escape from the city and head for the hills (or the serra in this case). There was almost no regard for me being a non-smoker while I was living down there and most institutions hold a laissez-faire attitude towards those who choose to light up in the presence of others.

According to Euromonitor.com, the following information results from a market study done in 2006 about smokers in Brazil.

“Brazil has the world’s strictest governmental laws against smoking, consisting of highly visible anti-smoking campaigns, severe control on advertising, and very high taxes on smoking products. Despite these obstacles, the number of smokers in Brazil continues to grow. In 2006, there were approximately 44 million smokers in the country, up from 38 million in 1997. Factors driving this trend include the low price of cigarettes, which are among the lowest in the world; the easy access to tobacco products as well as the actions taken by the powerful tobacco companies to slow down the anti-smoking legislation in Brazil.”

The Brazilian government’s Ministry of Health has a different picture, as can be seen on their website (in English) and the pamphlets they offer up on their site in PDF form.

“Com cigarro, tudo vira cinza”
(“With a cigarette, everything turns to ashes”)

More Research

In conjunction with my writings on Brazil’s Nouveau French (above), here’s some more research on smoking in Brazil.

“The diseases caused by passive smoking kill seven people per day, or 2,655 people per year in Brazil, according to a study released on Friday.

The study, released by the Rio de Janeiro State University and the Cancer Institute, showed that passive smoking could cause serious diseases, such as lung cancer, cerebral hemorrhage, angina pectoris, myocardial infection and coronary thrombosis.”

…more on CCTV.com

In other news…

Pollution Kills (more than transit and AIDS together)

SÃO PAULO – Pollution already kills more than AIDS and transit together in the city of São Paulo. Paulo Saldiva, a doctor from the Lab of Atmospheric Pollution of USP affirms that only one thing can fix it, the reduction of the liberation of emissions from diesel oil used by vehicles, can avoid 150 deaths per year – a little less than the total number of victims of AIDS in the city of São Paulo, which has reached 232 per year in 2007, for example.

According to lab studies, the sicknesses provoked by pollution, turn into anything from respitory problems to heart attacks, causing close to 9 deaths per day in the Paulista capital. Each year (due to pollution), there are close to 3,500 deaths. (Comparitively) In the capital, transit has caused 1,352 deaths in 2007, according to the data from the Municipal Secretary of Health. All together, in the last year, AIDS and transit have caused 1,624 deaths in the city.

(In the Portuguese language, run-on sentences are many times not seen as problematic, lol.) 

More on Oglobo (in Portuguese)