Turkey’s president likens quitting smoking to rebirth

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has made yet another attempt to fight tobacco smoking by saying that a social landscape should be created to put pressure on smokers, according to a story in the Hurriyet Daily News.

“We must create a social landscape where smokers are condemned,” he was quoted as saying.

“When I see someone smoking, I try my best to take their packets from them. I feel happy when I make someone quit smoking, as if I have helped their rebirth,” Erdoğan said at a Green Crescent Society (Yeşilay) event in Istanbul last week.

The president, who has often spoken out against smoking, mentioned that until 2008 it was legal to smoke everywhere in Turkey, including on airplanes and trains, and even at sports centers. The government then passed a law banning smoking indoors.

In addition to fighting the smoking habit, Erdoğan claimed responsibility also for fighting against other habits, such as drugs and alcohol.

Yeşilay, which is an organization that endeavors to fight ‘harmful habits’, recently created a stir when, in an attempt to attract more government funding, it added ‘prostitution, technology and gambling’ to its list of harmful habits.

Yeşilay has traditionally restricted its work to the struggle against tobacco, alcohol and drug addiction.