Turkey saw its highest figures of cigarette consumption to date in 2019, with a total of 119.7 billion cigarettes consumed, state-run Anadolu news agency said on Saturday, citing data provided by the country's health ministry, EDNews.net reports citing Ahval News.
Last year's cigarette consumption exceeded the record high figures in 2018, with a total of 118.5 billion cigarettes, and Turkish smokers spent 78 billion liras ($11.4 billion), Anadolu said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is a fierce opponent of smoking, has long waged anti-smoking campaigns in Turkey, where 14.5 million adults and 252,000 children use tobacco every day, according to Tobacco Atlas, a leading source on tobacco data.
Meanwhile, Turkey leads the world in taxes levied for cigarettes, which register at up to 87 percent, following a series of hikes to tobacco taxes since the beginning of 2019.