Market-oriented transformation of tobacco sector in Turkey

The tobacco sector in Turkey has passed through a market-oriented transformation together with the neo-liberal policies since 1980. Within this period, as an input of cigarette manufacturing, the state control over the conditions of tobacco production and cigarette manufacturing and distribution has been gradually deactivated and left to the decisions of transnational tobacco companies. The restructuring of tobacco sector as a new area of valorization for capital has led to an increase in cigarette consumption. On the other hand, demand-side policies to reduce cigarette consumption that have been implemented since the mid-1990s have been doomed to have a much weaker effect, in an environment of increasing manufacturing and trade. As the case of Turkey illustrates, a real struggle against cigarette consumption has to target manufacturing and thus, the tobacco industry itself. From a public health-perspective, this fact indicates the necessity of establishing public control over manufacturing and trade of tobacco products.