Antismoking Initiatives

Europe may be following suit. Italy’s Constitutional Court, which is the highest interpretative body of the Constitution, has recently acknowledged that citizens have the right to request compensation for “damages incurred by the so-called passive smoking.” The court affirmed that since the Constitution guarantees the “right to health,” whoever smokes in public places violates “the primary and general prohibition of impairing the health of another” and could be made to compensate his victim. “The compensation,” stated the court, is related “to all the damages that could potentially prevent the person from fulfilling himself as a human being.”