Police Chief Doesn’t Smoke, NSS Chief Secretively Does: Prime Minister Jokes

The Minister of Health, Arsen Torosyan, called on public food establishments to voluntarily adopt smoke-free policies in their restaurants during a Government session discussing amendments to the laws on "Reducing and Preventing Harm to Health from Tobacco Products and Their Substitutes" and related issues.

"We currently have such restaurants that do not face any income issues; on the contrary, sometimes they have no seating available," said the minister.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan also mentioned that the issue is about giving a certain time to businesses, which is stipulated in the draft law. He noted that this government has the lowest number of smokers.

"Eighty percent of government members do not smoke. And it was very pleasant to note that 100 percent of governors do not smoke; we don't know what the situation is in the law enforcement block. The Police Chief doesn’t smoke, while the NSS Chief secretly smokes. I think this is also an important indicator, and who, if not our government, should make such a decision. By the way, it should be noted that the majority have been smokers. I myself smoked for many years and eventually quit smoking," said Pashinyan.