Greeks are the heaviest smokers in the European Union, a survey found. The survey results were published by the European Commission for World No Tobacco Day.
Thirty-seven percent of Greeks are smokers, according to the report, which also showed that Greece had the smallest proportion of people, 44 percent, who said they’ve never smoked a cigarette.
The survey showed a wide range of smoking rates among countries in the EU, which overall has a smoking rate of 26 percent. After Greece, France and Bulgaria were tied in second place, both with a 36 percent smoking rate, then Croatia at 35 percent.
Sweden had the lowest rate at just 7 percent. It also found that overall in the EU, the smoking rate among 15- to 24-year-olds has gone up from 25 percent in 2014 to 29 percent this year.
In terms of measures to stamp out smoking, 63 percent of those surveyed for the study said the use of electronic cigarettes should also be banned in places where smoking is prohibited.
Greece has tried many times to prohibit smoking in public places through several laws. Too bad the laws were issued amid the crisis. While the country took the issue fairly under control in public administration places, hospitals, airports, trains etc., it failed to enforce the ban in entertainment facilities.
Despite the constant increasing of prices for cigarettes and other tobacco products, Greeks found it difficult to quit smoking amid the economic crisis.
According to a European Commission press release, the survey was conducted by Eurobarometer. The general aim of the survey is to assess the prevalence and pattern of tobacco and electronic cigarette use, exposure to smoke in public places, to explore the motivations for smoking, and to help identify measures to reduce the number of smokers in the EU.
The recent results are compared to the previous surveys, showing stable use of e-cigarettes (2%) and no decrease in the overall smoking rate in the EU (26%) since 2014. Amongst people aged 15 to 24 the rate has increased from 25% in 2014 to 29% in 2017.
PS unfortunately, the more stress you have, the more you smoke.
I’m glad to see the Greeks have taken back the top spot. The Bulgarians had it for a year or two.
It’s gratifying to see also that the Greeks obviously haven’t been taken in by all the hyperbolic propaganda that Tobacco Control use in their scaremongering press releases.
As Tobacco Control (the name says it all) claims get ever more shrill and outlandish in their desperation to remain relevant, people are starting to realise what a bunch of lying charlatans they are, and always were. It’s like the old proverb about the boy who cried “Wolf!”; and they’ve cried “Wolf!” too many times. It’s now becoming increasingly obvious to more and more people that the anti-smoking drive has never been about health; it’s an interfering busybody’s charter. Nanny in hobnail boots.
It is, and it always has been always been nothing but an ideological zealotry bent on destroying something they personally don’t like. It’s well past time that governments stopped throwing taxpayer’s money at them.