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Despite a ban on indoor smoking, Greece remains among the countries with the highest smoking rates in the world, although there has been a significant decrease compared to a few years ago, the chief executive of tobacco giant Philip Morris International, Jacek Olczak, tells Kathimerini in an interview.

Olczak says that the ideal for smokers, over 1 billion worldwide, would be to quit smoking altogether, but as the indications so far show that they will not, the most “pragmatic approach” is to use products that eliminate combustion, such as e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products.

Greece records the second highest share of daily cigarette smokers within the EU for 2019 according to the latest Eurostat data, at 23.6% with Bulgaria in first place at 28.7%.

Following Greece are Latvia (22.1%), Germany (21.9%) and Croatia (21.8%).

In contrast, the countries with the smallest shares of daily smokers were Sweden (6.4%), Finland (9.9%), Luxembourg (10.5%), Portugal (11.5%) and Denmark (11.7%).

Researchers examined data collected from one-time surveys of 30,272 people aged 20 to 75 years about their smoking habits, e-cigarette use and respiratory symptoms that might indicate breathing diseases like asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD). Compared to people who never smoked, current smokers were 18 times more likely to use e-cigarettes, the study found. Ex-smokers were more than twice as likely as people who never smoked to use e-cigarettes.

A study by renowned anti-smoking expert Dr Konstantinos Farsalinos analyzes and compares carbonyl emissions from an HnB device, an e-cigarette and a regular cigarette. The products used in this study were PMI’s IQOS, both regular and menthol variants, the Nautilus Mini e-cigarette, a tank-type atomizer tested with a tobacco-flavoured liquid at 10 W and 14 W and a Marlboro Red cigarette. Aerosol and smoke were collected in impingers containing 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine [...]

The purpose was to assess prevalence and correlates of electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use in Greece in 2017. A cross-sectional survey of a representative sample of 4058 adults living in Attica prefecture (35% of the Greek adult population) was performed in May 2017 through telephone interviews. [...] Current smoking was reported by 32.6% of participants. Ever e-cigarette use was reported by 54.1% (51.4–56.8%) of current smokers, [...]