How We Lost Our Freedom: No Tobacco in Cafes, But No People, No Jobs... The Government Profited!

By: Rasim Belko

It's been almost a year since the use of cigarettes was banned in catering facilities in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in accordance with the Law on Control and Limited Use of Tobacco.

Yesterday it was announced that between the entry into force of the legal provisions (December 13, 2024) and November 30 of this year, 138 misdemeanor orders totaling 155,000 KM were issued in the Sarajevo Canton alone.

The financial data on punishing disobedient caterers are clear, but there is no data, research, or at least any A4 paper on the benefits for society in the FBiH entity from the aforementioned law, or at least it has not been published.

Despite all other burdens that make their survival difficult, caterers have been imposed rules that are making their establishments increasingly empty. Because you don't have to be an expert in anything to understand that more than 60 percent of visitors to catering facilities are actually the population that consumes tobacco. Therefore, caterers have lost customers. And with that, profit, so some of them reduced the number of employees, while some had to close their establishments.

Others, a bit bolder, played with the imposed rules, thus filling the budgets of cantonal bureaucracies and being closed for certain periods. These fines inevitably led to significant deficits, which forced these caterers to lay off workers, reduce salaries, and so on.

A third category consists of those who divided their catering establishments into two parts, a smoking and a non-smoking section, and very quickly realized that the ratio of guests in the smoking-allowed area was at least twice as high. Therefore, these caterers are also at a loss, because the non-smoking part of their establishments is mostly empty, and they still had to pay rent and everything else for that part of the space. Business has thus decreased, so employees have felt it in their salaries, and some have ended up at the employment bureau.

In summary, caterers, employees, and their families have lost. Those who enjoy tobacco products have also lost, as they have had to change their habits, pretend to be homeless while smoking tobacco outside catering establishments…

Given that there is no data or research on the impact of the law on reducing tobacco consumption, it is clear that the justifications in which lawmakers expressed concern for public health were lies and deception.

So who benefited?

First and foremost, manufacturers and sellers of alternative forms of tobacco consumption benefited. There is no research on this either, but I am sure that everyone reading this text has noticed people with strange devices in their hands more and more often since December last year, smoking in an unspecific way.

The government also profited, because from the fines mentioned at the beginning of the text, they will be able to fill the budget they have emptied, and thus continue to plunder it with the amounts paid. I wouldn't be surprised if the fine amounts increase soon.

Considering that I have taken the Sarajevo Canton as an example in the story of the rape of democracy and freedom under the guise of public health concern, it is interesting that no one is remotely concerned about the poisons we inhale every time we leave our homes. Because, at the time when the law on the use of tobacco products was passed, we read various experts (read mercenaries) with exact (read false) data who were supposed to convince us of the need to pass this law.

The effects of the law are therefore profit for the alternative tobacco products industry and for the government.

And we will continue to cram ourselves into those separate smoking areas and choke in the Sarajevo smog until, perhaps one day, we have had enough and decide to tell them and their laws, which exclusively serve the profit of selected political and business elites, to go to hell!

Otherwise, the autocratic riff-raff will continue to rape this semblance of democracy and the little freedom we have left!