When/where By Whom Was A Policy Statement Made To This Effect ?

[KARL]

Recently a conference was held in Turkey under the auspices of the federation of European cancer societies. There different countries were rated as to their relative position for effectiveness of their anti-smoking measures. The UK came first with a score of 74%, helped to some extent by a policy to ban the sale of smoking tobacco within the next two decades. Ireland followed second (similar policy), then Norway and Iceland (as yet neither with such a policy but Sweden has a target of 2025).

This policy is something I was totally unaware of - I know that the medical societies, etc. would like something like this to be in place but that does not equate to an official policy. Can anyone enlighten me as to what form this policy takes - or was the matter misrepresented by the UK delegation ?

[slaney]

Is this what you are talking about Karl - scroll down to Table 4.
http://www.europeancancerleagues.org/images/TobaccoControl/TCS_2013_in_Europe_13-03-14_final_1.pdf
The UK does come first mostly because of public smoking ban and the amount it spends on treatment to help people stop smoking.
I can't see anything about a policy to ban the sale of smoking tobacco, only to ban advertising.

[KARL]

Thank you very much for that, very interesting. I had not seen this but a news report on the conference mentioned the total ban targets - I cannot find any reference anywhere to one for the UK and, as I said, have never heard of it before.