10 smokers’ paradises: A guide for globe-trotters
With so many places around the world instituting smoking regulations, increasing taxes and, quite literally, kicking smokers to the curb, it’s getting harder to find cigarette-friendly vacation spots.
But not every country is trying to kill that buzz. On the flip side, some of them, such as Greece, are attempting to crack down but are failing miserably.
You may feel alone smoking in some major U.S. cities, so we’ve compiled a list of countries with the most prevalent tobacco use among people aged 15 or older, based on 2005 data from the World Health Organization.
Nonsmokers, too, will want to take note of the list. As you might guess, a smoker’s paradise can be, in turn, a nonsmoker’s hell.
1. Greece: Because their country belongs to the European Union, Greeks are exposed to smoking literature and regulations that condemn the habit.
But that’s not going to stop them. More than half of all adults, or 51.8%, living in Greece smoke tobacco. It’s the only country above the halfway mark, according to the WHO data.
Surprisingly, though, tobacco use among Greek adolescents is relatively low, at 16.2%. That puts the number of Greek users aged 13 to 15 at No. 76 of all countries where data were collected.
Maybe all that anti-tobacco talk is starting to influence the younger generation. Either that or their parents are. Ask most kids, and you’ll find that anything Mom and Dad do is uncool.
2. Nauru: This tiny island republic near Papua New Guinea was previously known as Pleasant Island. That’s probably because nobody told the legion of smokers about lung cancer. WHO reports that 49.2% of the island’s inhabitants smoke tobacco. Still, we’re guessing Marlboro hasn’t bothered targeting the 14,000 or so living there.
3. Russia: Some Russians use cigarettes as a way to trick the body into feeling warmer. It’s no wonder then that 48.5% of the Russian Federation population uses tobacco. Smokers heading for the frozen motherland should probably bring along a pack of smokes and a bottle of vodka. It’s a party!
4. Austria: While much of America’s narrow view of Austrians may center around California’s governor, the health buff, it’s hard to imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger pumping iron and puffing smoke. In fact, Schwarzenegger is a “cigar aficionado” of sorts. And 43.3% of people who live in Austria consume tobacco.
5. Belarus: Unsurprisingly, the former Soviet Union territory, which is bordered by Russia to the north and east, picked up the nicotine habit. Of about 9 million residents, 42.6% of the adults use tobacco.
6. Bosnia and Herzegovina: Looking for a smoking-friendly place with varied climate and topography? This southeastern European country isn’t a bad spot. You won’t feel left out when you light up because 42.3% of adults will be right there with you.
7. Serbia: As it turns out, smoking is pretty hip in southeastern Europe. Adult smoking in Serbia parallels that of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Tobacco popularity among adolescents is similar as well — around 13%.
8. Samoa: Looking for a tropical isle on which to lounge around, cigarette in hand? Forty-one percent of adults in the island nation of Western Samoa, located in the Pacific Ocean, puff on tobacco.
9. Laos: WHO data were incomplete for Vietnam and Myanmar, also known as Burma — although what we have show strong signs of tobacco use. But for the bordering Lao People’s Democratic Republic, smokers are aplenty, encompassing 40.5% of the adult population. Interestingly, Laos has even fewer adolescent smokers than Greece does, amounting to just under 9%.
10. Hungary: Smoking is just as prevalent in the central part of the Continent as in the southeastern part. Smokers looking for a safe haven won’t be alone: Hungary is a popular tourist destination.
—Mark Milian, Los Angeles Times staff writer
Sunday: Five nonsmokers’ paradises: A guide for globe-trotters
Photo credit: Aris Messinis AFP/Getty Images
Map: Based on data from the World Health Organization. Credit: Ken Schwencke / Los Angeles Times
20 Comments on “10 smokers’ paradises: A guide for globe-trotters”
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October 31st, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Thanks for this article! When (if..hehe) I ever get a hold of some vacation money, I’ll use this article as a reference:-)
Young people in nations with a higher proportion of adult smokers smoke LESS? Gee, what a concept. Thanks for pointing out the obvious. Maybe the health crusaders in our own country (and the rest of the Western World) should take notes; then they should stop bullying millions of adults that use a legal product. Then maybe we could reduce a lot of wasteful spending on anti-tobacco programs that ironically make younger people feel a duty to rebel against the very people that are trying to “help” them.
…Dreaming of Greece:-)
November 1st, 2009 at 3:31 am
These countries are a long way to go for dedicated smokers who don’t want to feel isolated from the general population. I think we’ll see a rise in the culture of “secret smokers” right here in the U.S. who will hide out in shame in the dark recesses of their basements, behind closed bathroom doors or inside the garage, if they have one. My Dad’s 90 years old, and no way is he going to give up his habit…why should he, at his age?
November 1st, 2009 at 4:34 am
Come to China! 80% of the men smoke (albeit the wrong stuff) and anywhere!
November 1st, 2009 at 5:09 am
Perhaps that is the reason that so many Russian women pour on cheap perfume by the liter. But it doesn’t help cover their stench. It just blends together 2 bad odors… Kind of like putting deodorant on dog poop, instead of removing it.
November 1st, 2009 at 9:41 am
Never been to Barcelona? Even the preschools there have smoking sections.
November 1st, 2009 at 9:45 am
WorthLivingTours.com actually offers a 5-day cigar smokers tour of Honduras and Nicaragua called Roll’n’Smoke! They not only allow cigar smoking anywhere and everywhere, but encourage it.
November 1st, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Thanks for the heads up I will avoid those “smokey Joe” countries like the plague.
November 1st, 2009 at 9:05 pm
I’m suprised that South Korea didn’t make this list. Like Greece, there are plenty of laws against smoking yet none of them are taken seriously. Most adult men in Korea smoke (women are not allowed to smoke in public without being scorned though this excludes foreigners).
There are very few places in South Korea where you can’t smoke. Many new buildings will require you to go outside, but 99% of bars and 50% of restaurants will allow you to smoke. If there is no structure over your head then you can also smoke. Coffee shops and cafes still have smoking rooms.
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:58 am
How is Spain NOT in the top 10?!?! Everyone smokes here-pregnant, old, young, dying … come to Spain, no one will scold you here!!
November 2nd, 2009 at 3:07 am
“Dedicated smokers.”
What a sad joke. Some smokers think they are maintaining a ‘lifestyle’. They don’t even know they are addicts and tools of corporate greed.
November 2nd, 2009 at 4:06 am
You can smoke in Spain, too…
maybe they need to research a bit better…
November 2nd, 2009 at 5:43 am
The fact is, this whole “let’s” get rid of tobacco and smokers has failed, world-wide, miserably. As well it should. One group, moneyed through their governments and prejudicial to begin with demands and then lies about EVERYTHING to get their own way. In the USA, they should all be executed as traitors to the Constitution and the people of America, because it is simply Prohibition as it was with alcohol. Well, an Amendment was made (yet again) to tell people they could not do that (yet again). This time, the bastards knew they could not get what they wanted by going THROUGH the Constitution, so like everyone in government for the past 20 years, they went AROUND it, throwing it off as a silly, idiotic, out of date irrelevance that thwarted THEIR demands.
1.3%. That is the “success” rate of getting smokers to stop. World-wide! England gave up. America’s not passing around free stuff anymore either because it costs too much and does NOT work. People NEED their addictions to get through life. Some, it’s food. Others, they have babies so men will HAVE to see them. Some, it’s alcohol. Or gambling or even weight lifting or working out until you look like a dried up, anorexic shark of a woman.
How about this? Leave people the hell alone. It’s going to come down to war here in America, especially now that idiots are trying to ban E-cigs. Over 200 million have been sold here in the US, which puts a lie onto the anti-smokers and their purposely false lies about how many smokers there truly are in America. And let’s not forget cultures who consider tobacco sacred. Leave it to a filthy christian without christ to demand people stop doing what THEIR religions tell them to.
It’s not going to work, we’re breaking the laws everywhere and saying come get us. It’ll cost your town 20 times to come get you for a ticket than actually paying one, so do what you want and when you’re told how to behave, bring up the First Amendment and the reasons you’re going to keep smoking! Heart attacks are THE #1 killer in America, but still these lying packs of inhuman crap are paying news agencies to put out false stories that, “Our bans are working! Heart attack rates drop!!!”
Bullshiters, the lot.
“I wonder what color star they’ll make us wear for smoking so they can move us into ‘camps’”.–A Jewish 19 year old smoker standing in the rain of a hotel courtyard.
“Tell a lie often enough, with enough confidence, over and over again, and people will believe it’s the truth” — Herman Goering- Chief Propaganda Leader for the Nazis.
November 2nd, 2009 at 8:54 am
I think smokers would be much happier if they could smoke whereever they like -
So why not outfit them with a clear glass bubble helmet that will keep their stink all to themselves and they can smoke till their heart’s (dis)content?
November 3rd, 2009 at 3:18 am
The Austrian anti-tobacco-law is to week to stop smoking in restaurants, public areas and public buildings. There is hardly any city in the world, where the pavements are spoilt with rests of cigarettes than Vienna. Even the underground is in fact not smoke free. No holyday destination for those tourists who want smoke free vacancies.
November 5th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
I have just been to Barcelona, and there was no problems if you wanted to smoke. About one third of the restaurants permit smoking. I visited Mallorca in 2008 - no problems there either
November 6th, 2009 at 2:36 am
Wow it’s so unusual to hear non / anti smokers come out with the usual old lines, I can’t stand them or their tired old lines. If you don’t want to smoke than don’t..!! If you don’t want to eat Tuna because Dolphins get hurt in the nets, then don’t. Just for the love of god stop telling us all about it, I really couldn’t care less, I smoke and I like it and I don’t need a lecture from some spotty twerp or some under educated gym bunny telling me how bad it is for ” like eh” my health, get this I KNOW AND I DONT CARE, if you have a problem with that than don’t stand down wind as I’m having and enjoying my smoke.
If this was an article about ten places to go fishing, I wonder would you have people making snide comments about fishermen? No it’s just the usual stuff from the usual creeps, “land of the free” I think not. Maybe I should start a religion which involves smoking, than I could claim religious persecution by these wonderful non smokers.
November 6th, 2009 at 10:43 am
That’s some good logic there, wykydred. I’m glad smoking in various outside areas in L.A. is thankfully becoming harder and harder to do. If you smoke in public, YOU FORCE everyone else around you to smoke. Maybe smokers enjoy being paying puppets of the death culture, and that’s fine, but smokers have NO RIGHT to inflict that on others. What part of this is unclear to you? Whatever you want to do in PRIVATE is up to YOU. You can drink in certain places all over the U.S. can’t you? Can you just crack a beer on any random corner? No. (Maybe New Orleans…) If SOMEONE ELSE BESIDES YOURSELF is smelling the carcinogenic smoke from your cigarette, it is no longer about YOUR rights, it becomes an intrusion on the rights of others. So check YOUR fascist statements and Nazi references.
November 6th, 2009 at 10:59 am
“The Sidewalk Smokers Club,” a novel that entertains through the issues in these posts.
http://sidewalksmokersclub.blogspot.com
November 6th, 2009 at 11:59 am
I don’t smoke but I am baffled by the ANGER of non-smokers toward smokers. Burning tobacco doesn’t really bug me. Yet many times I have sat at a cafe table outside where a smoker lights up, only to see some yahoo 5 tables away go completely insane as if someone dropped a rotten piece of meet on his leg.
No, it’s not the smokers… it’s the DRIVERS. You want a filthy, sickening, disgusting, stomach-turning stench? Start a car.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Who’s defining ‘adults’ as those 15 years and older? The tobacco industry might want us to see 15 year-olds as adults, but they’re certainly not. If it’s the World Health Organization that’s mischaracterizing children, that’s still no excuse for the LA Times to pass along the misinformation. Reporters (yes! … even bloggers) have a responsibility not simply to pass along press releases and other official hand-outs, but to think carefully and make corrections when necessary.