Ay Carumba! Spain has gone completely smokefree.

Spain was one of those European countries that supposedly banned smoking (way back in 2006), but really didn’t. The rules were very lax and even those lax laws were essentially ignored. This has been the case in some other European countries that have “banned” smoking, (such as Italy and Greece), where the smoking rate is still so high and smoking so entrenched in the culture, that it was a hopeless law.

Well, Spain decided to crack down. No more ifs ands or buts. No smoking in bars or restaurants at all in Spain. No smoking on television, and no smoking in hospital parking lots (Reminds me of that Editors song, “Smoking outside the Hospital Doors.”), and playgrounds.

Of course, the ruling SOCIALIST party was behind the new law, and even then it was a close vote in the lower house, passing just 189 to 154.