The Next Step For A Smoke-Free Generation: a multidisciplinary study of opportunities for expanding smoke-free environments in the Netherlands (translated from Dutch) 247 7 The scope of regulation of smoking in cars has many variants. In most cases, the regulation of smoke-free cars is aimed at protecting minors on board, but there are also examples, such as Kuwait and Turkey, where no smoking is allowed in any vehicle. The age of minors being protected varies considerably. For example, in the US state of Ohio, smoking is not allowed in the presence of passengers under six years old, while the age limit in some Canadian provinces is 19. Italy prohibits smoking not only with minors on board, but also in the presence of pregnant women. For playgrounds, too, smoke-free policies are generally introduced by the central government, although local regulation sometimes applies. New York State bans smoking between sunrise and sunset in public playgrounds when children under 12 are present. Smoke-free playgrounds can be part of a broader smoke-free policy. In Greece, for example, all environments where minors gather are formally smoke-free, including indoor and outdoor areas aimed at sports and amusement. If regulations are not determined centrally but locally, this can not only lead to ambiguity about the applicable rules (where can citizens smoke and where not), but also to legal inequality: protection from tobacco smoke is place- and age-dependent, and the rules on this can differ between cities, municipalities, provinces and states. Undesirable regional disparities in smoke-free policies also exist in the Netherlands.16 Only half of the 49 municipalities surveyed had set targets for tobacco control within their local health policy. In addition, seven out of ten municipalities had established informal smoke-free zones outside the current national legislation, including for playgrounds and sports parks. It is therefore highly recommended to regulate nationally. Local regulation may be welcome if national rules need further elaboration and if further protective measures need to be taken. The survey also shows that various legal frameworks are used to introduce smokefree policies. We find frameworks at three regulatory levels: global (e.g. by the United Nations and the WHO), European (e.g. by the European Union and the Council of Europe) and national. Specifically, these are the human rights treaties of the United Nations and the Council of Europe, the WHO framework convention on tobacco control, European legislation and, for example, in the Netherlands, national tobacco laws and regulations. In some cases, justifying smoke-free policies is based on the importance of the rights of children and adolescents, as enshrined in Article 3 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.17,19
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