Tag: Turkey

  • KT&G Donates Diagnostics Kits to Russia and Turkey

    KT&G Donates Diagnostics Kits to Russia and Turkey

    Photo: KT&G

    KT&G has provided diagnostic kits worth KRW100 million ($84,136) to Russia and Turkey, where the new coronavirus infection has been spreading rapidly. In early May, the government provided 6,300 diagnostic kits to the Indonesian government.

    “We decided to further support Russia and Turkey in order to help overcome the global disaster,” said Kyung-Dong Kim, KT&G’s head of social contribution. “We will fulfill our social responsibilities as a company.”

    Headquartered in South Korea, KT&G has substantial operations in both countries.

    KT&G has also supported coronavirus relief efforts in its home market. Among other initiatives, the company donated KRW500 million in emergency aid to the National Association for Disaster Relief and delivered KRW1,600 million worth of medical items.

  • Turkish Leader Blasts Tobacco Industry

    Turkish Leader Blasts Tobacco Industry

    Photo: Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

    Celebrating the World Health Organization’s World No Tobacco Day, Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan on May 31 blasted the tobacco industry, saying it entrapped millions of young people in addiction.

    “The tobacco industry has been filling its own pockets for decades, depriving the freedom of millions of young people, imprisoning them to a life of addiction,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Turkish youth via videoconference at an anti-smoking event in Istanbul.

    Erdogan said temporary closures of hookah-smoking and entertainment venues introduced to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus would remain “for a while longer.”

    In February, Turkey banned the import of e-cigarettes and related products. Asserting that the tobacco industry had tried to find new customers for the “poison” they produce, Erdogan accused the industry of propaganda and manipulation.

    Turks consumed a record 119.7 billion cigarettes and spent TRY78 billion ($11.4 billion) to sustain their habit in 2019, according to data released by the country’s health ministry.

    The figure exceeds the previous record, set in 2018, of 118.5 billion sticks, and comes despite a long-running anti-tobacco campaign.

    Registering at up to 87 percent of retail price, Turkish cigarette taxes are among the world’s highest, following a series of hikes to tobacco taxes since the beginning of 2019.

    An estimated 14.5 million adults and 252,000 children use tobacco every day in Turkey, according to Tobacco Atlas.

  • Smoking up, and down

    Smoking up, and down

    Turkey’s tobacco-smoking prevalence fell after the imposition of a public-places tobacco-smoking ban, according to a story in The Daily Sabah.

    Increased taxes on cigarettes and free medical treatment for smokers were said also to have aided the decline in the habit.

    The smoking rate was 31.6 percent in 2016, the latest year for which data is available, down from 32.5 percent in 2014, said the story, which was based partly on statements made by the Health Minister, Fahrettin Koca.

    However, earlier this month, The Hürriyet Daily News reported that Turkey was due to launch a new anti-smoking campaign in the coming months following an increase in the incidence of smoking.

    Koca reportedly said in an interview with the Hürriyet Daily News that the incidence of smoking had increased from 27 percent to 32 percent in recent years, despite a ban on smoking in public places.

    The incidence of smoking among men had increased to 44 percent, while that among women had risen to 19 percent.

    Meanwhile, Koca was reported in the Daily Sabah piece as saying that 900,000 people had applied for free medicine provided by his ministry in the past nine years to help them quit smoking.

    And last month, Turkey announced that the nicotine-replacement medicines, Bupropion HCI and Varenicline, would be made available to smokers free of charge.

    The story said the authorities were determined to stamp out smoking, ‘which still prevails among the young and kills more than 100,000 people every year due to diseases linked to smoking’.

  • Smoking up in Turkey

    Smoking up in Turkey

    Turkey is due to launch a new anti-smoking campaign in the coming months following an increase in the incidence of smoking, according to a story in The Hürriyet Daily News.

    The Health Minister Fahrettin Koca reportedly said in an interview that the incidence of smoking had increased from 27 percent to 32 percent in recent years, despite a ban on smoking in public places.

    The incidence of smoking among men had increased to 44 percent, while that among women had risen to 19 percent.

    President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had endorsed Turkey’s long-term anti-tobacco campaign, but the smoking industry had been finding new ways to increase consumption, the minister was reported to have said.

    “They pushed for water pipes after inspections against smoking in cafes or restaurants intensified,” Koca said. “They campaign that electronic cigarettes are harmless, although the situation is the other way around. They promote slim cigarettes for women’s consumption.”

    He accused the tobacco industry of trying to encourage young people to become long-term users and women smokers to become role models.

    “They are introducing smoking as part of a modern life and culture,” he said. “That’s why we should also fight these efforts of the tobacco industry.”

    The News said that the new campaign, which will be unveiled in a couple of months, will display smokers as ‘second-class people’ in the eyes of the public – presumably in the eyes of the non-smoking public.

    It will bring in changes also to smoking-in-public-places regulations.

    And it will herald intensified enforcement of those regulations.

  • Peddling cessation

    Peddling cessation

    The children of parents who have made written promises to quit smoking have received bicycles as part of a campaign carried out by the municipality in Turkey’s southern province of Kilis, according to a Hurriyet Daily News story.
    Nine thousand five hundred bicycles had been distributed so far and a further 5,500 were due to be distributed, Mayor Hasan Kara said during a ceremony on December 24.
    In addressing a group of children, however, he laid down three conditions that had to be met before they could enjoy the official largess.
    The first condition involved making mothers, fathers, grandmothers or grandfathers quit smoking, while the other two involved school performances.
    The mayor advised the children to use bicycle lanes in the city and said he hoped they would enjoy the upcoming winter break.

  • Turkey steps up campaign

    Turkey steps up campaign

    Turkey is to require that tobacco products are sold in standardized packaging from next year, according to a Daily Sabah story.
    A law mandating such packaging came into force yesterday.
    Under the law, starting in 2019, cigarettes and other tobacco products must be sold in standardized packaging with large health warnings and the brand name shown on only one face.
    The law bans the use or promotion of tobacco products on television, in television series, films, music videos, films screened in cinemas or during theater performances, on social media and other Internet venues.
    The sale of tobacco products in facilities where health and education services are offered, such as universities, is banned also.
    Turkey already banned smoking in indoor public places, including restaurants, bars, cafés and similar establishments, and in outdoor places, including stadiums, mosque courtyards and hospitals.
    It has imposed higher taxes on cigarettes and provided free medicine and ‘treatment’ for smokers.
    However, the authorities have some way to go to meet their target of stamping out smoking.
    The incidence of smoking in the country fell from 32.5 percent in 2014 to 31.6 percent in 2016, the last year for which data is available.
    Last summer, the government introduced its 2018-2023 action plan for tobacco control that includes shorter shifts for non-smoking employees and increasing the legal age for buying tobacco products from 18 to 21.
    Further, the Daily Sabah story said that companies were to be encouraged to hire non-smoking personnel and that those with non-smoking employees were to be offered tax reductions.

  • Erdoğan against e-cigs

    Erdoğan against e-cigs

    The President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, known for his staunch anti-cigarette stance, has turned his ire on electronic cigarettes, according to a story in The Hurriyet Daily News.
    “They have invented something bizarre called electronic cigarette,” Erdoğan said at a symposium in Istanbul on international drug policies and public health.
    “They claim it does not contain any nicotine or very little of it. But soon people will become addicted to it.”
    Erdoğan said cigarette companies had approached the government to make investments in Turkey.
    “They are saying they will invest $500 million or $1 billion,” he was quoted as saying.
    “But we offer them alternatives. We are asking if they are going to export what they produce here. Would you do that, we ask.
    “But they demand at least 10 percent of their products be consumed domestically. Then their true intention becomes clear.”
    Erdoğan suggested that those companies wanted to turn young people into addicts.
    “We will not allow this to happen,” he said.

  • Picturesque questions

    Picturesque questions

    A court in Turkey has rejected a claim by a man who said that a graphic cigarette-pack warning included a picture of him in hospital with a breathing tube in his mouth, according to a Hurriyet Daily News story.
    The man, who lives in the western province of Tekirdağ and who was identified only as İbrahim A., had sued five tobacco companies in 2012.
    He had asked for TL302,000 in compensation for the use of the picture without his permission.
    According to the plaintiff, the photo was taken in a state hospital’s intensive care unit where he had been taken after suffering breathing problems in June 2009.
    But attorneys for the tobacco companies said the man in the picture was not İbrahim A. “The picture [on the cigarette packs] was dated to 2005 and picked from the European Commission’s reference list,” they said.
    The court announced its verdict this week, citing an expert report and saying that whereas the man pictured on the packs was a ‘bit similar to the plaintiff’, ‘it was not him’.
    In dismissing the case, the court stressed the ‘mismatch’ between the date the picture on the packs had been taken and the date İbrahim A. had been hospitalized.

  • Considering plain packs

    Considering plain packs

    The Turkish government is considering introducing standardized packaging for tobacco products, according to a story in The Hurriyet Daily News quoting the Health Minister Ahmet Demircan.
    Demircan did not elaborate but said that details of the planned measures would be unveiled in coming days.
    “Cigarette packages should not be easily accessible and they should not make smoking appealing,” he said.
    “Packages should not serve as advertisement materials. We have to take necessary measures to prevent this.”
    More than 26 million people are said to have called the ‘172 helpline to quit smoking’ that was launched by the Health Ministry in 2010 and some 70 percent of those people stopped smoking, according to the minister.
    But in November 2017 he said that while the proportion of tobacco users aged 15 and above had dropped to 26.8 percent in 2012, the rate had increased to 32.5 percent in 2014.
    The latest proposed measures follow on from the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) long-standing anti-smoking crusade, which began with a smoking ban in enclosed public places in 2009.
    “You don’t have freedom to commit suicide, so you don’t have freedom to expose yourselves to terminal diseases …,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is known for his strong anti-smoking views, said in 2016.
    “There can be no such freedom as the freedom to smoke … The state must protect its citizens against tobacco, alcohol and drugs, just as it is obliged to protect them against crimes like theft and terrorism.”

  • Smokers spending big

    Smokers spending big

    More than a trillion cigarettes valued at TL328.8 billion (US$154.1 billion) were consumed in Turkey during the past decade, according to an Anadolu Agency report quoting government data.
    ‘Sources’ at Turkey’s Food, Agriculture and Livestock Ministry were said to have told the Agency on Thursday that while cigarette consumption had reduced slightly between 2008 and 2017, spending on cigarettes had risen. The sources asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media.
    Smokers spent TL55.9 billion (US$15.3 billion) on more than 106 billion cigarettes last year, while in 2008 they spent TL18.3 billion (US$14.1 billion) on nearly 108 billion.
    Turkey exported about 356 billion cigarettes valued at US$3.6 billion over the decade, including 2017 exports of 49.3 billion cigarettes valued at US$484.2 million.
    To reduce consumption, Turkey has restricted tobacco use in enclosed public spaces since 2008 and required warning labels on tobacco products since 2010.
    In 2005, Turkey’s rate of tobacco-product usage for males over 15 was 51.5 percent and for females it was 16.7 percent, but by 2015 these rates had fallen to 39.5 percent and 12.4 percent respectively, according to World Health Organization data.
    The WHO estimates that by 2025, these rates will have dropped to 30.7 percent and 9.2 percent.