Turkey has passed the revolutionary antitobacco law
10 January 2008The parliament of Turkey has approved the bill of a complete ban of smoking in public places.
The bill forbids smoking in places of entertainments, including cafes and restaurants, stadiums, transport, in a taxi, in particular, trains, and also commercials of tobacco products, their mentioning in films, serials and in musical clips.
Infringement of the law will be punished with the penalty up to 4,3 thousand dollars. So, only for a cigarette stub thrown in the street or a pack from cigarettes the infringer should pay 18 dollars.
The new law of Turkish legislators was induced by a sad statistics: annually in 65-million Turkey about 160 thousand people die from the illnesses caused by smoking. On the official data of the local Ministry of Health, about 40 % of Turks in the age of 15 years and elder are smokers, who consume about 17 million packs of cigarettes a day.
The bill should be approved by the president of Turkey, and after the approval it will come into force from the moment of its publication in the governmental Official newspaper.