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Anastasia Balezdrova

Each year, the list of smokers in Greece increases by another 50,000 new persons. Statistics show that half of them will die from diseases associated with that passion of theirs. The spreading of the detrimental habit is one of the major challenges for health services in the country, especially as far as children are concerned.

In this regard, the third Pan-Hellenic Tobacco Control Congress on "I'm learning not to smoke" will take place in Athens from 6 to 8 December. Within its context, children will explain the harm of smoking with their drawings, stories, sculptures to their peers and classmates. As the pneumology professor and the Director of the National Steering Committee for Tobacco Control, Panagiotis Behrakis, states, "The fact that 30 schools, about 1,000 pupils and 150 teachers have applied to participate in the Congress is very important for dealing with the problem in the future."

According to him, passive smoking is the cause of many serious diseases in children: asthma, pneumonia, ear infections, sudden death syndrome in infants, mental retardation. Recently, researchers have found that it reduces their sense of smell as well.

Passive smoking is equally harmful for adult non-smokers too. "People suffering from chronic diseases such as asthma, coronary heart disease and others are socially isolated because there are no places where they can have fun. At the same time, more than 130 thousand workers are exposed to a working environment that resembles a mine in the 15^th century. A waitress cannot allow herself to get pregnant because the smoke-saturated atmosphere will harm the embryo. If a waiter does become ill with a chronic illness, he just will not be able to return to work because of these conditions. These examples might seem excessive, but they are not. Nobody has the right to force others to become passive smokers," the professor said.

The last law, which bans smoking in public places, was passed two years ago. Initially its implementation was  monitored more closely but then, the inspections subsided. However, according to the data presented, the number of Greeks, who do not comply with the ban, whether or not this is because they fear the sanctions, which are generally not applied, has gradually increased in recent years.

Meanwhile, 76% of smokers and 77% of non-smokers in Greece are of the opinion that the authorities have not taken enough measures against the spread of smoking among young people.

When asked whether they agree with the expected increase in the price of cigarettes by two euro, 52% of non-smokers and 26% of smokers respond positively. Their support increases if they are certain that the money from the increase will go to health services and programmes against smoking, and not to fill the holes in the state budget.

"International experience shows that the policies against smoking should be complex. They should combine financial measures that will make smoking more difficult to access," said the professor of health economics Yiannis Kiriopoulos.

He pointed out that the economic crisis contributes to increased tobacco use and the majority of consumers start smoking cheap tobacco, thus damaging their health.

According to the professor, the measure increasing the price of cigarettes has led to positive results in many countries that were not in such a difficult economic situation as Greece. It helps stop smoking, reduce the number of new smokers and prevent diseases and premature deaths."

In numbers, this means that: When stopping smoking, a household can save within a year an entire salary, which it can spend for healthier activities and the state saves from 500 million to 1-2 billion euro from drugs and expenses for expensive therapies.
 
Experts said that 75% of citizens and doctors support the proposal to increase the price of cigarettes in Greece if the money will go to the national health system.
 
Pneumology professor Panagiotis Behrakis paid particular attention to the smuggling of cigarettes and said it was the main topic at an international conference on tobacco control held recently in Seoul. "International cooperation is needed to stop the traffic because it makes any government policy in this regard difficult or even meaningless. If this does not happen, all the measures will have limited results because the cigarettes of traffickers will always be cheaper and smokers will prefer them."