Miguel Albuquerque does not want the recent changes to the Tobacco Law to be applied in the Region and guaranteed that the Regional Government will fight to prevent this from happening.
“We’re going to try and make sure that the law is not applied in Madeira”, he began, adding that, in his opinion, “the law has to be changed”, since people should only have restrictions on smoking “when they harm non-smokers and when they put the public health of others at risk”. Otherwise, “it’s nonsense.
Tobacco is sold in establishments and to adult people, so we are not going to stop selling it, for example in São Vicente and Porto Moniz because you need a tobacco shop there. That doesn’t make any sense. I’m not going to make people go around the island to come to Funchal because you can only sell it in tobacco shops. It’s stupid, it doesn’t make any sense
*(Miguel Albuquerque, President of the Regional Government)
The Madeiran Chief Executive even says that the changes that recently came out of the Council of Ministers will eventually be changed, “because there is a set of fanaticisms and fundamentalisms that don’t make any sense.
“What makes sense is to continue the law that is in force, which is no smoking indoors, no smoking near schools and other public bodies. Now smoking outdoors, in the garden or on a beach, or stop selling tobacco at gas stations and bars, I do not see what the problem is. Are restrictions without any sense”, ended on the sidelines of a conference on Digital Transition in Schools, held at the Congress Center of Madeira.
