Success Story of Smoke-Free Turkey

Tobacco smoking has been high in Turkey, being one in three (31.2%) adults smoking. Smoking prevalence showed considerable increase during the years of 1983-1999, mainly due to introduction of multinational tobacco companies into the country. Following this increase in tobacco use, major health problems such as lung cancer, heart and lung diseases increased in the country. Tobacco control activities started during 1990's, in collaboration with civil society and government initiatives. The first law on tobacco control in 1996 introduced restriction of smoking in many places, particularly at health and educational establishments and government offices, but not at hospitality industry. After more than 10 years implementation of this law, the understanding of smoke free concept was quite well adopted by the community. Then, in 2008 the law was amended to cover hospitality venues and commercial taxis. This change in the law made Turkey one of the first three countries as complete smoke free country. Positive consequences of the implementation of the law was observed as improvement of indoor air quality at restaurants, bars and tea-coffee houses, complaints of the workers at the hospitality venues and also decrease in admissions to emergency health services due to heart and respiratory conditions.