GERMANS BLOW SMOKE AT CIGARETTE RESTRICTIONS

BERLIN—Perhaps no other Western democracy is as highly regulated as
Germany. The nation's voluminous legal code prescribes socially acceptable
norms for almost every aspect of life. There are laws that dictate what
names you may bestow on your children, what kind of waste you are allowed
to produce and how much per week, and what times of the day you are
permitted to wash the car or mow the lawn.

But when it comes to controlling behavior that may jeopardize public health
and safety, German laws can be curiously lax. Foreigners are often amazed
by the absence of speed limits on freeways, where a frenzied parade of
Porsche, MercedesBenz and BMW automobiles roar recklessly down the pike at
speeds of 150 mph. The antispeedlimit lobby proudly trumpets the slogan,
"Freie Fahrt fur Freie Buerger," which roughly translates as "Full Speed
Ahead for Free People."

Smoking is another activity that has escaped the constraints of law. In
contrast to nearly every other Western nation, the German government has
avoided waging an antismoking campaign, perhaps because many leading
politicians are known to be tobacco fans. Former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt
would conduct meetings while ingesting the weed through snuff, cigarettes
and pipes. His successor Helmut Kohl, an inveterate pipe smoker, says he
fails to see why governments should become involved in clamping down on
what he views as one of life's basic pleasures.

"We are sometimes criticized for trying to influence politicians with
donations to their parties," says Ernst Brueckner, the director of the
German cigarette industry's lobby. "Of course we do a lot to convince the
public and the politicians of our good arguments. And the Finance Ministry
gets 20 billion marks [about $12 billion] in taxes from us each year.

"But in the United States, you have the sad phenomenon of the cynical
persecution of a minority. The discrimination and isolation of smokers as
well as the tobacco industry bears no relation to the health problem."

Given prevailing attitudes, it should have come as no surprise that Germany
was the fiercest opponent to the preliminary decision by European Union
health ministers Thursday to impose a sweeping ban on tobacco advertising.
German Health Minister Horst Seehofer argued, to no avail, that such a ban
would compromise Europeans' freedom of choice.

While tobacco advertising has been banned on radio and television here for
more than two decades, the EU ban which would come into effect over
several years extends into print media and such areas as sponsorship of
sports and cultural events.

In Germany, there are virtually no restrictions on smoking in such public
places as restaurants, bars and offices, and Germany's cigarette
consumption per capita ranks as one of the highest in the Western world.
About 90,000 people die every year in Germany from smokingrelated
diseases, far more than the number who perish in automobile accidents.

The reluctance to crack down on smoking may have something to do with an
aversion by all postwar German governments to embrace policies no matter
how benign that the Nazis endorsed. A British medical journal quoted
Adolf Hitler as saying his Nazi party would never have ascended to power if
he had not given up smoking. Under Hitler's dictatorship, the Nazis
conducted one of the world's most vigilant antismoking campaigns. They
imposed severe restrictions on smoking in public places and banned pregnant
women from lighting up as part of their quest for physical purity.

Recent court judgments have defended the rights of Germans to smoke in
their offices, regardless of angry complaints by fellow workers, by
ascribing the habit to the personal freedom guarantees enshrined in the
nation's postwar constitution. Like the executive branch, German courts
have been loath to condone any repressive action no matter how
beneficial to the commonweal that may resonate with echoes from the Nazi
era.

But there are signs that an intensifying barrage of warnings from German
health professionals is starting to have an impact. Roland Sauer, a member
of parliament from Kohl's ruling Christian Democratic party, is promoting
legislation that would protect the rights of nonsmokers. He says that even
though Kohl remains adamantly opposed to the measure, support is building
among other politicians and society for more aggressive legal action
against smoking.

"We are not looking for a general prohibition of smoking. We do not want a
situation like in America, where there is a virtual war against smokers,"
Sauer said. "All we want is a law that protects nonsmokers in places where
they are forced to meet smokers."

Sauer acknowledges that his proposed law probably would not curtail the
high number of smokers in Germany because the majority of them are so
addicted they may have a hard time obeying verboten signs. But he insists
that voluntary considerations simply do not work. "Tolerance and
understanding may be nice human virtues," Sauer said. "But in Germany, you
need the power of a law to make people realize you are serious."