CZECH REPUBLIC

Jiri Kozak
Czech Committee of the European Medical Association on Smoking or Health

I was a smoker of 10-15 cigarettes a day for 20 years. On 1972 as a chest physician, I become acquainted with the Surgeon General´s report on tobacco impact on health. As a member of the Council of the Czech Pneumological and Phtisiological Society at that time, I informed the Council on my intention to establish the Committee on Smoking and Health in the framework of the Society, in order to inform and educate colleagues of our society in tobacco control, impact of smoking on respiratory health and in smoking cessation. [How could I] lead the committee on tobacco control when I was a smoker? My answer was to quit cold turkey. Since that time I am an ex-smoker.

The seminars on tobacco control were organized minimally once a year and were incorporated into the programes of congresses. Many speaker from abroad were invited to deliver their papers on tobacco. In 1989 I was asked to be an adviser in creation of the first Czech law on some restrictions in smoking in the country

In the year of 1985 I was nominated a member of the IUATLD Committee on non-specific respiratory diseases and was a member of the new established IUATLD Committee on Tobacco or Health. I was also at the establishing of the EMASH, the European Medical Association Smoking OR Health, which I am vice-president and editor of the EMASH Newsletter. I was nominated to chair the Advisory Group on Smoking Prevention and am chairing the Czech Committee of EMASH. Together with colleagues we are collaborating in amendment of the law on smoking control, on education of smoking cessation at the Postgraduate Medical School courses two times a year which result was that there are round 70 smoking cessation clinics in the country.

The Czech Committee of EMASH is partnered with the Oregon Health Sciences University Smoking Cessation Center