Smoking kills 500 a year in Cyprus

FIVE-HUNDRED Cypriots die of smoking related diseases every year, while the total cost of treatment for smokers paid by taxpayers reaches £32 million a year.

A statement issued yesterday by the Cyprus Greens revealed that the number of annual deaths due to smoking in Cyprus was five times higher than deaths caused by car accidents.

According to paediatrician Nicolaos Matsianiotis and pathologist Charalambos Roussos, 548,000 Europeans die every year because of smoking and 17 per cent of deaths caused by lung cancer are of non-smokers who are exposed to passive smoking.

The Greens argue that “the Cyprus community lets cigarette companies bask in their profits while their friends and family die slowly.” They stress that “nicotine is a drug and the promotion of smoking, particularly to young people, reaches the boundaries of criminality.”

The Greens further point out that although the House of Representatives has adopted a law banning smoking in public places they do not even apply it within the House itself. They argue that Larnaca airport is the only airport in Europe where “all the cafeterias cater only to smokers with ash trays on every table — usually full of cigarette butts.”

The Greens Party concluded by calling on the government to enforce the existing law relating to smoking in public places by banning smoking within the House and committee rooms and by authorising police to enforce the law in other public places.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.