Health group warns Turkey's new tobacco bill could legalise e-cigarettes and heated tobacco

A Turkish public health association has warned that a tobacco bill expected to reach the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye (TBMM) in October could open a legal route to the market for electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products, even though it is being presented around a “smoke-free generation” and a 2040 goal of ending tobacco use.

At a press meeting in the Levent district of Istanbul, Sağlığa Evet Derneği (Yes to Health Association) said the country does not need new legislation but complete enforcement of the existing Law No. 4207 on the Prevention and Control of the Harms of Tobacco Products, according to reports by BirGün and Gerçek Haberci.

What the draft is said to contain

According to accounts of the draft cited at the meeting, it would ban cigarette sales for life to anyone born after 1 January 2015 and set 2040 as the date for ending tobacco use in the country altogether. Association representatives said these headline goals may cover preparations to legalise electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products.

Association president Prof. Dr. Elif Dağlı said no public authority has yet officially confirmed the claims about the new law, and pointed back to the 1980s, when foreign cigarette companies were allowed to manufacture in Turkey. “In the period when Turgut Özal gave American cigarette firms the authority to open factories in order to increase tax revenue, the winners were the foreign companies and the losers were the tobacco grower and our people who got cancer,” she said. Dağlı added that existing tobacco laws are sufficient and should be applied rather than replaced, and that legislation should deliver the least profit to foreign capital and the most benefit to society.

Consumption running against the global trend

Association member Efza Evrengil said cigarette sales in Turkey reached 160 billion units in 2025 and that the rate of tobacco use climbed to 34.8%, moving against the downward trend seen elsewhere. She contrasted two regulatory models: the United Kingdom, where the adopted law introduced an age limit on conventional cigarettes while guaranteeing e-cigarette sales to those over 18 for life, and the Maldives, which banned both cigarettes and e-cigarettes.

“Preparations for a similar scenario are being made in Turkey,” Evrengil said, adding that launching new products while hundreds of thousands of under-18s are already dependent on tobacco is irrational. She also called for an immediate ban on slim cigarettes aimed at young people and on single-use cigarette filters as plastic waste, and argued that without changing the structural, political and social dynamics behind the tobacco epidemic, the 2040 ban and the “smoke-free generation” remain a wish list.

Seizures, licensing and market access

Board member Tanzer Gezer said the industry is trying to legitimise next-generation products through marketing language such as “harm reduction” and “smoke-free life”, and described an organised lobbying effort. Citing Customs Enforcement data, he said more than 8,584,000 illicit electronic cigarettes were seized in the first 10 months of 2025 alone.

“The industry first creates an illegal market, then demands regulation on the grounds of preventing tax losses,” Gezer said. He added that e-cigarettes are absent from the legal market not because of a categorical ban but because the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has not operated its licensing procedures. “Once the door is opened, there is no going back.”

Economic drivers and the fiscal balance

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Osman Elbek presented an ecological study covering tobacco control data from 31 countries, saying the problem cannot be solved by bans alone. The findings indicate unemployment and income inequality directly increase tobacco consumption, while quit rates are higher in countries with stronger rule of law, higher education levels, greater representation of women in parliament and stronger democratic rights, BirGün reported. Elbek said authoritarianism and economic injustice enlarge the tobacco epidemic, so tobacco control should be pursued together with social welfare and democratisation measures.

Experts at the meeting said roughly 100,000 people die each year in Turkey from tobacco-related causes, and that the cost of diagnosing and treating tobacco-related diseases reaches about twice the tax revenue collected from tobacco products. The association asked for effective implementation of Law No. 4207, protection of children and young people from next-generation nicotine products, and limits on the tobacco industry's influence over policymaking.