Stunting Public Health: Big Tobacco, Cigarette Smoking, and Anti-Smoking in Postcolonial Cyprus, 1960–1980

This study investigates how multinational ‘big’ tobacco companies established a duopoly over the cigarette industry in Cyprus during the post-colonial period and how Cypriot governments contributed to encouraging cigarette smoking at the expense of public health, despite the known links between smoking and cancer since 1950. After briefly exploring the pre-independence cigarette industry, showing how the considerable role of multinational tobacco companies was connected to the high rates of smoking, the article focuses on how this continued after independence in 1960, when ‘big’ tobacco companies monopolised the industry after ‘merging’ with local cigarette manufactures and expanded their advertising. The article then looks at how there was little discussion of the dangers of smoking in the press. The anti-smoking message became more prevalent only after the formation of the Cypriot Anticancer Society in 1971, yet the first government anti-smoking action came after the formation of the ‘Non-Smokers League’ in 1980.