Azerbaijan closes doorway on smokers

Anti-smoking advocates and health experts have hailed recent government proposals that aim to cut the number of smokers in Azerbaijan, according to an Azer News story.

Few details of the proposals were given, but Musa Guliyev, deputy chairman of the Standing Committee on Social Policy, was said to have ‘underlined the necessity of adopting a law restricting smoking in public places along with the law “On tobacco and tobacco products”, which was adopted in Azerbaijan in 2001’.

Guliyev apparently suggested that fines should be imposed on people who smoke at home near children and in the doorways of houses.

Most of Azerbaijan’s smoking population comprises men, about 50 percent of whom smoke daily.

Forty percent of male smokers are said to smoke ‘at least one or two packs of 20 cigarettes per day’.