Initial attempts at cutting down smoking in Poland through government intervention took place in the 1960s. These were spurred by the rapid pace at which tobacco consumption increased in the country – from one of the lowest levels in Europe in the interwar period, at about
550g/person in 1935, to one of the highest in the world in 1960, at over 1500g/person.115 In
August 1966, the Polish press agency announced an increase of tobacco prices – the cost of the most popular brand, Sport cigarettes, went up from 12 to 14 cents for a pack. The change was unexpected, and all tobacco kiosks closed after it was announced, to prevent hoarding before the increase was put in effect. This was the first time such a measure was officially justified by health reasons. The Polish Press Agency reported that the increase was necessary ‘to check the very rapidly growing consumption of cigarettes […]’, because ‘in light of recent medical research, such a rapid growth of tobacco consumption exerts a negative influence on the health of the
115 Synowiec, Przemysł tytoniowy w Polsce w okresie pierwszego planu pięcioletniego [Tobacco industry in
142 population’.116 This token change did not mean much in practice, as cigarettes were so cheap
that a slight increase constituted no barrier at all for consumers. On the Polish market, 1 kilogram of sugar cost as much as 72 cigarettes, 1 kilogram of meat as much as 163 cigarettes, and 1 kilogram of butter as much as 393 cigarettes. This was much lower than elsewhere in Europe – for example, in France the cost of 1kg of butter was the equivalent of 60 cigarettes.117 Other
small symbolic changes took place within the government in this period. For example,
throughout the 1960s different ministers, as well as police chiefs, received set amounts of money to buy ‘presentable cigarettes’ for entertaining visitors. These extra payments were terminated in 1972.118 In 1971, following international trends, the flag carrier of Poland, LOT Polish Airlines,
prohibited smoking on all domestic flights.119
One area in which tobacco control in communist Poland was more stringent than in other European countries, including the Soviet Union, was advertising.120 Advertising in general was
closely controlled by the regime through most of the communist period and was frequently used by the state to reorient citizens away from a product which may be temporarily to one which was currently abundant. When, for instance, pork or butter became deficit goods; advertising would be praising the healthiness of beef or margarine. Often generic products were advertised (e.g. with slogans such as ‘Fresh eggs should be a staple in your family’s diet’), rather than particular brands; and in many cases there would be only one brand of any given product on the market anyway. While by 1989 there were 20 cigarette brands in Poland, there was never an oversupply of tobacco products on the Polish market.121 Together with alcohol, cigarettes belonged to a
116 Unknown, "Poland Raises Pay and Adjusts Prices," ed. Virginian Pilot(Tobacco Institute Records; RPCI
Tobacco Institute and Council for Tobacco Research Records, 1966).
117 Synowiec, Przemysł tytoniowy w Polsce w okresie pierwszego planu pięcioletniego [Tobacco industry in
Poland during the first five years plan], 5. Pp. 173-174.
118 IPN BU 1619/1326, "Wydatki na papierosy dla kierownictwa MSW [Spending for cigarettes for the MIA
management]," Institute of National Remembrance (1972).
119 Unknown, "Airline smoking ban," ed. Wall Street Journal(Tobacco Institute Records; RPCI Tobacco
Institute and Council for Tobacco Research Records, 1971).
120 Fox, "'Tobacco is Poison!' Soviet-Era Anti-Smoking Posters."; C. Kelly, "'The lads indulged themselves,
they used to smoke...' Tobacco and Children's Culture in Twentieth-Century Russia," ibid., ed. M. P. Romaniello and K. Stark; M.P. Romaniello and T. Starks, "Tabak: An introduction," ibid., ed. M. P. Romaniello and T. Starks. P. 6.
121 A. Nowakowski and S. Zaborniak, Ustawa z dnia listopada 1995 roku o ochronie zdrowia przed
następstwami używania tytoniu i wyrobów tytoniowych z komentarzem [Act of 1995 for the Protection of the Public from the Effects of Tobacco and Tobacco Products with commentary] (Wadowice: Uniwersytet Rzeszowski, Podkarpackie Towarzystwo Naukowe, 2006).
143 special category of goods, for which advertising was prohibited from the outset of Communist rule.122
The token regulations introduced in the 1960s, had little effect in stymieing the growth of smoking in Poland. By the mid-1960s Poland had the highest cigarette consumption rate in the CEE, at almost 2,500 cigarettes per year per capita.123 By the mid-1970s Poles became the
country with the highest smoking prevalence in the world.124 Cigarette consumption was to peak
at over 3,500 cigarettes by 1987, compared to the Eastern European average of 2,600, and a Western European average of under 2,300 cigarettes (Figure 10). This was, inevitably, followed by an explosion in the rates of tobacco-related diseases. The rate of cancer deaths grew rapidly, a problem made worse by the fact that the Polish health system, geared to treating infectious diseases, was poorly equipped to deal with chronic illness.125 In 1974 the director of the Warsaw
Cancer Centre declared that lung cancer has reached the status of an epidemic in Poland.126The
World Health Organization warned that half of all premature deaths among Polish men in the 1980s were linked to smoking.127 In 1983 a government report estimated the rate of all cancers
connected to smoking at 37% among men and 12% among women and that the disease killed over 12,000 people in Poland annually.128
The Polish medical and public health community, which throughout the 1960s perceived anti- tobacco advocates as puritanical fanatics, was becoming increasingly vocal about the need to tackle the spreading tobacco epidemic. In 1970 a Working Group on smoking-related problems was set up at the Medical Section of the Polish Academy of Sciences. It was composed of a small
122 Unknown, "Synopsis of Press, Radio and Television Coverage Received," ed. Campbell-Johnson
Limited(Tobacco Institute Records; RPCI Tobacco Institute and Council for Tobacco Research Records, 1981); J.E. Perczak, Polska reklama prasowa w latach 1945-1989. O reklamie której nie było? [Polish press advertising in the years 1945-1989. On advertising which wasn't there?] (Warsaw: Dom Wydawniczy Elipsa, 2010).
123 Eberstadt, "Health and mortality in Eastern Europe, 1965-85." P. 362.
124 A. Markiewicz, Nikotynizm drogą do innych uzależnień [Nicotine as a gateway to other addiction]
(Warsaw: TZN, 1989). Pp. 22-24.
125 Kubik et al., "Patterns of cigarette sales and lung cancer mortality in some central and eastern European
countries, 1960-1989."
126 Unknown, "Restrictions on smoking in Poland," ed. La Republicain Lorrain(Tobacco Institute Records;
RPCI Tobacco Institute and Council for Tobacco Research Records, 1974).
127 R. Peto et al., "Mortality from tobacco in developed countries: indirect estimates from national vital
statistics," Lancet 339 (1992).
128 IPN BU 1098/10, "Projekt uchwały Rady Ministrów w sprawie: ograniczenia palenia tytoniu ze względów
zdrowotnych, funduszu przeciwtytoniowego [Proposal of Council of Ministers decree regarding limiting smoking tobacco due to health reasons and an anti-tobacco fund]," Institute of National Remembrance (1983).
144 group of respected senior scientists, many with connections to the WHO, whose task it was to keep the government informed of the progress of research on smoking.129 These were informed
by the developments in western countries, where epidemiologists and medical scientists had become actively involved in the anti-tobacco effort – the first World Conference on Tobacco or Health was held in 1967 in New York, and was followed by tobacco control guidelines issued by the WHO and the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC), including an emphasis on legislative action.130 The Polish Working Group sent its reports to the Ministries, local authorities,
the mass media, and medical journals, with policy recommendations.131
Similar opinions from the medical community were increasingly widely circulated among state institutions. Even tobacco industry publications echoed some of their concerns, pointing out that smoking rates ‘in Poland and in Hungary are higher than the average in all other Comecon countries’.132 One tobacco industry representative wrote that Poland belongs ‘in terms of
smoking, to the world leaders, and we should not be proud of it’ and that ‘careful and effective tobacco control is needed.’133 Another added that ‘there is no reason why Poland should be one
of the world leaders in smoking’.134 Of course there was an agenda behind the Polish Tobacco
Monopoly’s concern about smokers – it wanted to encourage the government to step up the lucrative exports of its products, rather than focus on production for the domestic market.135
While different policy actors had their different reasons, by the mid-1970s a consensus seemed to have developed that the tobacco market could not remain effectively unregulated.