The Κ.Ο.Τ.Ε.Σ. party in Greece is the first smokers’ rights political party that has run at least twice in the general elections, in 2009 in the first Athens Constituency when they received 1,353 votes and in 2019 with a combinatorial ballot with left-wing party ΣΥ.ΡΙΖ.Α. Its leader Nikos Louvros was in that joint ballot and it is based inside the Booze Cooperativa premises for the fine arts in Athens. The party has a strong cultural and artistic element: Its name’s initials stand for Smokers’ Groups for Art and Visual Arts Formation. Visit the party’s website (http://boozecooperativa.com/) having frequent use of english.
The Greek smokers’ rights party Κ.Ο.Τ.Ε.Σ. objected to the smoking ban in the highest constitutional court of Greece named the Assembly of the Diminion right after it was upvoted under the health minister Demetrios Avramopoulos and the conservative government in 2009 and has received coverage from the BBC mentioning that it is the first party of its kind worldwide. Its logo projects 3 hens sitting on a twig because of the coincidental meaning of the initials. The ideological counterpart of a party for the UK is the We Can Smoke Party WCSP which was founded by Derek Allan Platten. See their website here (http://www.wecansmokeparty.com/) and Facebook Group here.
The left wing party the smokers’ rights party Κ.Ο.Τ.Ε.Σ. collaborated with for their joint ballot lost the election in 2019 and a conservative government of the New Democracy Party was formed after the 2019 elections in August. By September of the same year the conservative government dismantled the finance secretary’s law with an open window for legally smoking indoors.
This law had been passed by the ΣΥ.ΡΙΖ.Α. party government which had been elected in 2014 on the same year and permitted smoking in live music bars and venues under the condition that the owners paid €200 per square metre per year in taxation towards indoor smoking for their premises, known as the smokers’ tax. People could then smoke indoors at those venues and casinos and gambling or lottery stations, with the incentive that once a ticket has been paid for live music it would have to be displayed for reentering after going out to smoke, which would have been troublesome and disruptive or even impossible for the general convenience of the customers.
The deputy health minister and immigration minister of the left-wing government from 2014 to 2019 often smoked indoors and in public in the parliament’s premises and press conferences.
The next conservative government of the New Democracy party scrapped that window in the law as it had “promised” before the election, leaving smokers directly exposed to the smoking ban which was then implemented by the government and enforced by the Police to their own opposition mentioning that it was not their job to do instead of persecuting crime. The involvement of the Police in policing the smoking ban instead of different authorities and local authorities was met with uproar from a significant portion of the public and the political world, and with opposition by the Police itself which pointed out that policing the smoking ban to the end of minimising so-called disruption originating from smoking along with pursuing public health purposes was not part of their job instead of persecuting crime and not smokers.
But the conservative New Democracy Party under Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had not quite promised to scrap the window in the law instead of promising to enforce the smoking ban only for the aim of imroving public health and the perceived according to them quality of life. That can be seen more as a threat instead of an assertive and proactive promise before the elections which must have a positive and not a negated meaning. A threat to smokers who now have to pay the fine for breaking the smoking ban who along with bar and club owners endure an excessive number of raids and checks on their premises and the police-accompanied leisure of their customers leading to fines being imposed on both bar and club owners and smokers within a well-terrorised environment. The next Greek general election is on the 21st of May of 2023 and the current government’s conservative New Democracy party has a small lead in the polls.
Bring Back Smoking Freedom 