Fewer young Greeks smoking, data shows

Despite the failure of successive governments to implement a decade-old smoking ban, the majority of youngsters in Greece do not smoke, 2017 data from statistics agency ELSTAT show.

Only 12.7 percent of Greeks aged 16-24 spoke daily and 8.1 percent smoke occasionally, a reduction attributed to rising awareness concerning the dangers of tobacco.

“Fewer young people take up smoking and more adults are quitting, while an increasing number of people do not tolerate tobacco in non-smoking areas,” Dr Panagiotis Behrakis, director of the Institute of Public Health of the American College of Greece and coordinator of the European Commission’s Joint Action on Tobacco Control, told Kathimerini.

“In other words, everybody has understood the problem, except the state which has to implement the law,” he said pointing to a chronic lack of political will to enforce the law.