Anti-smoking ban ushers in a new epoch in Turkey

Justice Commission approves a new anti-smoking law that, if passed by Parliament, will impose strict new rules on smoking, but there are doubts concerning how heavy smokers will be persuaded to abide by them

ANKARA - Turkish Daily News

Parliament's Justice Commission's decision to approve an anti-smoking law this week is expected to seriously change the way Turks live. Smoking is an ancestral tradition that goes back to the 17th century, when the "nargile" -- the hookah, or water pipe -- became a fixture in Ottoman coffee houses.

For about half the adult population of Turkey, smoking is an absolutely normal activity, the result being a permanent national health disaster with anti-smoking campaigns making barely a dent in the habit.

Health Ministry figures show about 110,000 Turks die of smoking-related illness each year. About 60 percent of men and 20 percent of women in the country of 71 million people are smokers, one of the highest rates in Europe.

Nicotine addiction has reached worrying levels even in schools, where 11.7 percent of schoolchildren smoke, according to ministry figures, despite a ban on the sale of tobacco products to minors.

Even among the justice commission members failed to agree on the extent of the ban, with smokers among them describing the bill as an execution order for smokers.

Justice and Development Party (AKP) Gümüşhane deputy Mahmut Durdu said every article of the anti-smoking bill was problematic, while Adıyaman deputy Hüsrev Kutlu argued that most diseases were due to stress, describing smoking as a way to combat stress.

The bill approved by the commission still needs to be passed by Parliament's General Assembly.

Turkish Anti-smoking Fighters Foundation (SSV), Ubeyd Korbey, has said that warning messages on cigarettes packets, in concert with a series of anti-smoking advertisements, has decreased the number of people addicted to smoking in Turkey over the past six years.

In a statement made to the Anatolia news agency, Korbey asserted that the effects of a more concerted fight against cigarettes in Turkey were beginning to be seen, and that a significant drop had been registered in the number of addicted smokers since 1999.