[Changes in smoking frequency in Poland in the years 1923-2003]

Smoking is a commonly recognized risk factor of civilization diseases. The number of damaging compounds, including carcinogenic, inhaled by a smoker and exhaled, is directly proportional to a number of smoked cigarettes. Health promotion and prevention are bases of fighting strategy with health risk connected with smoking. The aim of the study was to contrast the number of sold cigarettes in one year in Poland, calculated per capita in selected years of 20th century and at the beginning of current century. The details, which are analysed in the study considering a total number of cigarettes sold in Poland, come from The Statistical Yearbooks and The Demographical Yearbooks of the Central Statistical Office. The analysis showed that in the year 2003 the number of cigarettes sold in Poland, calculated per capita were 4.3 times larger in comparison to the number of cigarettes sold in Poland, calculated per capita in the year 1923. In fact, the difference of the number of sold cigarettes is more unfavorable because the details which concerned cigarettes disposal do not include significant illegal cigarettes import. The highest number of cigarettes sold in Poland, calculated per capita in the analysed period of time, was noticed in the years: 1979--2741 cigarettes, 1980--2679 cigarettes and in 1987--2671 cigarettes, and the lowest was at the beginning of the analysed period: in 1923--450 cigarettes, in 1938--600 cigarettes and in 1949--893 cigarettes. Smoking spread in Poland at the beginning of current century which is measured by the number of sold cigarettes and noticed changes in statistics, calculated per capita, although downward trend is still on the high level.