Poles – once the world’s heaviest smokers – continue to kick the habit

The number of smokers continues to fall in Poland, which less than three decades ago had the highest cigarette consumption in the world.

An estimated 26% of Poles now smoke, according to a new report by Eurobarometer, the European Union’s polling body. That is a four percentage point drop from four years ago, and compares to an average of 23% across the EU.

In a sign of the generational divide between Poland’s heavy-smoking past and more abstinent present, smoking is less common among Poles aged 25 to 39 years (22% of whom smoke) than the EU average (30%), but it more common among Poles aged 40 to 54 (33%) than across the EU as a whole (27%).

Likewise, Poland has the EU’s second-highest proportion of people who have never smoked (62%, behind only Portugal) and its third-lowest proportion of those who have quit smoking (12%, above only Hungary and Romania).

Source: “Attitudes of Europeans towards tobacco and electronic cigarettes”, Eurostat

Eurostat also finds that Poland has the highest proportion of people who have never used e-cigarettes (93%, compared to the EU average of 85%). However, it notes that this “low prevalence does not correspond with available market data suggesting that Poland is one of the major EU markets for e-cigarettes”.

Smoking also continues to be more common among men in Poland (32%) than women (20%).

The decline in the popularity of smoking in Poland has been rapid in the last three decades. According to the World Health Organisation, Poland was the heaviest smoking nation in the world in 1992. The Centre for Global Development reports that nearly three quarters of Polish men aged 20 to 60 smoked daily in the 1980s.

Find more statistics at Statista

However, rising awareness of the health issues associated with the practice has led many Poles to drop the habit. In 1995, the Polish parliament passed a tobacco-control law that ordered the world’s largest health warnings on cigarette packages as well as banning sales to minors and electronic media advertisements.

A law banning smoking in indoor public places, such as museums, bars, cafés, shops and restaurants, came into force in January 2011.

Main image credit: Piotr Drabik/Wikimedia Commons (under CC BY 2.0)

Maria Wilczek

Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.