Cuba Limits Smoking in Longevity Drive

Feb. 5, 2005 -- -- Cuban President Fidel Castro is trying to junk his Caribbean island's image as a place where you can smoke fabulous cigars and black tobacco cigarettes anywhere, banning smoking in most enclosed public spaces as of Monday.

The move is part of a new crusade by Castro, 78, to raise his nation's life expectancy from the current 75 to 76 years, to 80 years by 2010.

Cuba's public health system stresses prevention -- from the 13 free vaccines children receive to the family doctor offices and clinics in every neighborhood. But longevity has not increased for over a decade, and Castro has been told smoking is a major reason.

Skepticism

Many Cubans are skeptical even the "maximum leader" can make the new law stick.

Cuban nurse Yuleisis Fonseca says Castro will need an army of "extraterrestrials" to enforce the ban, and that the doctors where she works are the first to smoke and will be the last to stop.

Fonseca did not know that smoking in Cuban health establishments and educational facilities was prohibited in the 1990s.

"You're not serious," the 27-year-old exclaimed when told, bursting into laughter.

The new law prohibits smoking "in all enclosed or air-conditioned locales open to the public, meeting places, theatres, cinemas and video halls, [by] drivers and passengers [in] taxis, trains and buses, and in all sporting facilities for athletes and workers."

Smoking will be restricted to designated areas in restaurants and night clubs. Selling cigarettes to children under age 16 is out, or from stores within 100 yards of schools.

"The objective is … to contribute to a change in the attitudes of our population," the resolution reads.

That will not be easy.

Determined Smokers, Determined Castro

Retiree Aracelio Martinez gave a disgusted look as he eyed the cigar smoke curling upward from his lips at a local bar and restaurant.

"More people die from car accidents than smoking, and no one tries to prohibit cars from the road," he said.

Sitting close by, a younger Yuri Labrador said he had smoked cigars all his life.

"I plan to keep smoking even if I have to spend half the day in the bathroom," he said.

But Castro is a stubborn man who goes by the motto, "If you do not succeed, try, try again," and both men said they had little doubt their president had more measures up his sleeve to get them to quit.

Castro's opening attack on an army fort in 1953 was a disaster. He went to prison, then exile in Mexico, but came back to Cuba with 80 rebels on the Granma yacht. The landing cost most of his troops and all but seven rifles. Two years later, in 1959, he marched into Havana and has been there ever since.

Castro Quit Cigars

In those days, a cigar chomping bearded comandante, be it Castro or Che Guevara, symbolized the revolution and masculine virility, but no more.

"El Comandante" made news around the world when he quit smoking cigars in 1986 as part of the health ministry effort to convince Cubans not to light up.

Since then, official propaganda has focused on persuasion, and the government on tobacco taxes and warning labels, to no avail.

Forty percent of Cuba's 11.2 million inhabitants smoke, even though a pack of the cheapest cigarettes is priced at nearly half a day's pay and the cheapest cigar at least a few hours labor. A large percentage of cardiovascular disease and cancer, the leading causes of death in Cuba, can be traced to the habit.