JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Russian lawmakers are defying an anti-smoking law, one that they passed. CNN's Steve Harrigan in Moscow explains.</s>STEVE HARRIGAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Underneath the floor of the Russian parliament, in a dark stairwell, lawmakers gather to smoke.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): A law is not going to make people stop doing what they want to do.</s>HARRIGAN: Deputies voted to ban smoking in the state Duma last spring. When they returned from recess this month, all the ashtrays were gone.</s>BONDAR VADIM, RUSSIAN DUMA DEPUTY (through translator): We have to set an example for the rest of the country. We are the elite of Russia.</s>HARRIGAN: In a country, where 70 percent of all men smoke, even some of the elite continue to puff away behind closed doors.</s>TRAVKIN NIKOLAY, RUSSIAN DUMA DEPUTY (through translator): It's a serious problem in Russia, making laws that no one obeys, not even the people who make them.</s>HARRIGAN: Others have grown bolder, smoking in front of no- smoking signs, even in front of television cameras. They use their own ashtrays, or flick to the floor. Small fines have been threatened, but none issued. The smokers smell victory.</s>NIKOLAY (through translator): This law will be forgotten. When the cleaning women get tired of taking ashes out of the plants and all the corner, they will bring back the ashtrays.</s>HARRIGAN: Of course, not all smoking politicians are ready to go on record, even those caught red handed have an excuse -- it has become international. "I did not inhale," he says. Steve Harrigan, CNN, Moscow.
Russian Lawmakers Defy Their Own Anti-Smoking Law