Word: tobacco
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Parental stress alone did not increase the children's risk of asthma, but the combination of living in a household with high stress levels and being exposed to pollutants from traffic in the environment was sufficient to trigger the disease. The study found similar results with exposure to tobacco smoke...
...government's zeal to get people to stub out their cigarettes is not without historical precedent. Shortly after tobacco was introduced to the Ottoman Empire in 1601, Sultan Murat IV banned the use and sale of tobacco - on penalty of death - after clerical decree. That ban, however, was repealed a little over a decade later, and smoking quickly became a status symbol, "one of four cushions of pleasure," according to one historian...
...Despite the prevalence of smoking in Turkish society, recent polls show overwhelming public support for the ban - around 90%. "There's been an amazingly quick cultural shift," says Sylviane Ratte, a tobacco control expert who monitors Turkey for the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (also known as The Union). "People see it as a health issue. The main concern is that the ban be equally enforced." To that end, the Health Ministry has trained a 5,000-person task force to patrol establishments and dole out fines to anyone caught lighting up. For now, smokers who defy...
...taking it too far. In Istanbul's busy waterfront Tophane district, popular for its nargile - or water pipe - cafés, dozens of patrons sit on candy-colored beanbags, puffing on glass pipes, impervious to the impending change as they fill the air with the scent of fruity tobacco. "This is part of our culture," says cafe owner Ali Unal. "I understand not smoking indoors. But they say you cannot smoke even outside if you're under an umbrella. I don't see how they will enforce this." Enforcement is likely to be even harder outside the big cities. Smoking...
...Turkey's new non-smoking law makes it only the second developing country after Uruguay to institute a comprehensive ban. That is significant - according to the World Health Organization, developing nations will account for 80% of the world's tobacco-related deaths over the next decade, as smoking rates in developed countries fall and tobacco companies step up their presence in other markets to compensate. "People in the region are watching Turkey closely," says Ratte, who is due to take her anti-smoking campaign to Egypt next. "It could become a regional role model, like Ireland was for Europe...