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 for this not to happen.
“We are going to try that the law is not applied in Madeira”, he began by referring, adding that, in his view, “the law has to be changed”, since people should only have restrictions on smoking “when they harm non-smokers and when they jeopardize the public health of third parties”. Otherwise, “it’s nonsense”.
The Madeiran chief executive even says that the changes that recently came out of the Council of Ministers will end up being changed, “because there is a set of fanaticisms and fundamentalisms that make no sense”.
“What makes sense is to continue the law that is in force, which is not to smoke indoors, not to smoke near schools and other public areas.
Now smoking outside, in the garden or on a beach, or to stop selling tobacco at petrol stations, snack bars, and bars, I don’t see what the problem is. They are restrictions without any sense”, he concluded on the sidelines of a conference on Digital Transition in Schools, which took place at the Madeira Congress Centre.