[Effective laws for tobacco control: EU directives and Italian legislation]

Effective tobacco control policies include law issuing: bans/restrictions on smoking in public areas and workplaces, increasing of taxes on tobacco products, bans on advertising of tobacco products, warning labels on cigarette boxes. For some of these policies the European Union (EU) has introduced specific directives that EU member states have to put into law. This paper briefly presents literature data, EU directives and the laws consequently issued in Italy. The importance of standardizing European legislation, especially for those policies that are not enforced by EU directives is also discussed. In Italy and in some other European countries smoking is forbidden in public and work-places, despite no EU directive. The positive impact of this ban in these countries suggests that it should be considered a priority in the European policies against tobacco in order to reduce the gap between literature recommendations and actions.