Tobacco consumption in Poland halved since '90s: report

The results of the World Health Organisation's study were presented in Warsaw on Wednesday.

Poland, alongside other EU states, is at the forefront of introducing policies aimed at curbing tobacco consumption, acclaimed physician Prof. Witold Zatoński said at the event.

The proportion of smokers in Poland dropped from 42 percent in the 1980s to 24 percent in 2015.

The drop may be largely attributed to a 1995 law on "the protection of health against the effects of tobacco consumption, then hailed by the WHO as the best such legal act in the world,” Zatoński said.

However, Poland continues to rank among countries with the highest rate of deaths from smoking-related lung cancer in the European Union, the Eurostat statistics agency said in May.

“We want cigarettes to be expensive, unappealing and hard to access,” Deputy Health Minister Zbigniew Król said, pointing to a 2016 "tobacco directive" under which health warnings must take up at least 65 percent of cigarette packaging, among other restrictions. (aba/gs)