Starting 3 March, all tobacco advertising and promotion will be illegal, including billboards, magazine advertisements and tobacco company sponsorship of events and concerts.

The law, which was past last year, bans tobacco ads in television and radio as well as outdoor advertising, and also prohibits any type of posters featuring tobacco products from being displayed inside shops, reports NOW Lebanon. It further stipulates that cigarettes in a store cannot be shelved within reach of customers.
Geroge Jabbour, president of the Advertising Agencies Association said ad companies are prepared to fully comply with the law and are expecting to take a financial hit. Spending on tobacco advertising, he said, was between USD 4 and USD 5 million (EUR 3 – 3.7 million) in 2011, representing some three per cent of the industry’s total revenue.
The same law also prohibits smoking in pubs, restaurants and nightclubs. But although the smoking ban is technically in effect for public buildings, an enforcement mechanism has yet to be legally codified. Geroges Saadé, coordinator of the National Tobacco Control Program at the Ministry of Heath expects that process to take one month and a half, according to NOW Lebanon. (pi)