Moving towards a healthier Turkey
On Monday, a law banning smoking in public areas went into effect in Turkey. The law, passed in January by the Turkish Parliament, outlaws smoking in all enclosed public spaces, including restaurants, bars, and sports complexes. Basically, any building with a roof of some kind will be required to become a non-smoking space in Turkey. The first adopters of this new law are office buildings and public structures, as the "bar and restaurant" portion of the ban has been put off until July 2009. While most non-smokers would agree that delaying this section of the law is undesirable, it is impressive that Turkey is taking steps toward eliminating smoking in such a way. After all, "To smoke like a Turk" is an unfortunate phrase that is commonly used to describe someone who smokes excessively. While smoking does seem like an indelible part of Turkish culture, from the nargile to Turkish tobacco, perhaps this ban is evidence of change.
According to a report published in 2004 by the Turkish Respiratory Journal, almost 50 percent of men and 20 percent of women are smokers in Turkey. With a population of over 70 million, this stand for almost 25 million people in Turkey. That's almost twice the current population of Belgium! Needless to say, this is a huge number of people. This may explain why enjoying a smoke-free meal is a rarity in Turkey, as inevitably someone seated nearby lights up at some point during a meal. Finding a "non-smoking" section is a bit of a quest as most bars and restaurants don't want to chase their smoking clientele away. After all, when a third of your customers smoke, it doesn't make sense to make life difficult for them. This is one reason why the ban isn't being enforced in bars and restaurants yet. Instead, they will be given a little over a year to comply with the new law.
Will the ban help smokers quit? According to a 2005 report on ABC "World News Tonight," four years after New York City banned smoking in restaurants, bars, and offices, the number of adult smokers fell by 500,000. In San Francisco, smoking bans are credited for a 6 percent drop in local lung cancer rates. National Public Radio interviewed Richard Hurt, an internist at the Mayo Clinic's Nicotine Dependence Center, in 2007. Regarding smoking bans in the United States and Europe, he stated that the bans helped to "de-normalize" smoking. In countries that had seen smoking as a normal part of life without any restrictions, more people smoked. Alternatively, once bans had been put in place and smoking was no longer the norm, there were fewer smokers overall. This is simple and logical, yet it takes time to make changes.
As a non-smoker, I've been wondering if I would see any smoking ban-related meltdowns in Istanbul this week; more aggressive taxi drivers, altercations in the street, or co-workers chewing pencils down to the lead. However, nothing was out of the ordinary and it seemed like a quiet week; I wonder if this wave of the law is just the calm before the storm. I'm fairly certain that the real challenge is going to come once bars and restaurants have to ask their smoking patrons to put out their cigarettes or leave.
In California, I witnessed the smoking ban come into effect in the bars there, which greatly dismayed my friends who smoked. A smoking ban had been passed into law in 1994, yet it took until 1998 to enforce it in bars across the state. Bars had been the last bastions for smokers, the only place with four walls and a ceiling where smoking was allowed. Most bars complied with this law, yet in my old neighborhood in Oakland, there was one bar that had some kind of deal with the local police. Bartenders would announce to the clientele that the police was coming by, so patrons would put out their cigarettes and hide their lighters. Even though a thick cloud of cigarette smoke hung in the air, the police officers would walk through and leave as if nothing happened. Smokers flocked to this bar like it was the last place in the state where they could enjoy a cigarette, which in retrospect, it perhaps was.
I had forgotten about that bar until this week, when I thought about how Turkish restaurants and bars would deal with this ban next year. I'm sure most companies and businesses won't have any problems complying with the new law, after all, it is in the interest of health. However, I do know that if some places in California got away with allowing smokers to smoke, the same thing will happen here in Turkey, but perhaps on a larger scale. Enforcement is going to be a challenging task to undertake and with so many people smoking, it's going to be especially difficult in Turkey. However, these kinds of laws and changes in Turkey are progressive and will be positive for smokers and non-smokers alike. Perhaps one day we'll look back and forget what "to smoke like a Turk" means, since Turkey seems to be moving in a healthier, smoke-free direction.
posted by camille @ 1:41 PM
1 Comments:
Of course the difference between NY and Turkey is that in Turkey, who follows the rules? Not many. I used to get irked at the malls throughout Istabul (Carrefour, Metro City, etc), watching men sit under the no smoking signs smoking. If Turkish people actually stopped smoking in no-smoking zones and the rules were enforced, I could see a health benefit. But until then. Nope.
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