Smoking ban in Russia

Russia, the world’s second biggest cigarette consumer after China, has banned smoking in most public places as well as all tobacco advertising.  Even popular Soviet-era cartoons featuring pipe smokers are to be censored. It’s unclear, though, how the ban will be enforced.  Moscow police chief Anatoly Yakunin said his force has no plan to arrest violators. “We hope that they will prove to be conscientious and gradually begin to comply with the law, although we do have certain doubts,” he told Rossiyskaya Gazeta.  More than half of Russian men and nearly a fifth of Russian women smoke daily.