Alcohol laws of

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

regulate the sale and consumption of

alcoholic beverages An alcoholic beverage (also called an alcoholic drink, adult beverage, or a drink) is a drink that contains ethanol, a type of alcohol that acts as a drug and is produced by fermentation of grains, fruits, or other sources of sugar. The cons ...

Background

Rakı Rakı or raki (, Turkish pronunciation: ) is an alcoholic drink made of twice-distilled grapes. It is the national drink of Turkey. It is also popular in other Balkan countries as an Apéritif and digestif, apéritif as well as in Kazakhstan. I ...

(

Rakija Rakia, Rakija, Rachiu or Raki (), is the collective term for fruit spirits (or fruit brandy) popular in the Balkans. The alcohol content of rakia is normally 40% ABV, but home-produced rakia can be stronger (typically 50%). Etymology Fruit sp ...

) is a famous

Balkan The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...

alcoholic beverage, and is a significant part of Turkey's food and drinking culture, a significant cultural-historical symbolic drink in many of its cities, and also the national drink of Turkey. Alcohol consumption is just above 1.5

litre The litre (international spelling) or liter (American English spelling) (SI symbols L and l, other symbol used: ℓ) is a metric unit of volume. It is equal to 1 cubic decimetre (dm3), 1000 cubic centimetres (cm3) or 0.001 cubic metre (m3). ...

s per person in Turkey, which is the lowest percentage in the Europe by population, considering the high

Turkish population The Turkish population refers to the number of ethnic Turkish people in the world. During the Seljuk (1037–1194) and Ottoman (1299–1923) eras, ethnic Turks were settled across the lands conquered by the two empires. In particular, the Turkific ...

.Constanze Letsch, ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', 31 May 2013
Turkey alcohol laws could pull the plug on Istanbul nightlife
/ref> Turkey is a

secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...

country, and even though the majority of the Turkish population is Muslim, the consumption of alcohol both in public and in private is very common. Though due to this fact, issues such as

alcohol addiction Alcoholism is, broadly, any drinking of alcohol that results in significant mental or physical health problems. Because there is disagreement on the definition of the word ''alcoholism'', it is not a recognized diagnostic entity. Predomin ...

(alcoholism), and other serious issues caused by this factor are a problem in the country.

Consumption measures

Age limits

The sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages is age limited to persons 18 and over.

Drunk-driving

Turkey's

driving under the influence Driving under the influence (DUI)—also called driving while impaired, impaired driving, driving while intoxicated (DWI), drunk driving, operating while intoxicated (OWI), operating under the influence (OUI), operating vehicle under the infl ...

law gives a

blood alcohol content Blood alcohol content (BAC), also called blood alcohol concentration or blood alcohol level, is a measurement of alcohol intoxication used for legal or medical purposes; it is expressed as mass of alcohol per volume or mass of blood. For exampl ...

limit of 0.05 mg/ml and 0 for commercial drivers. Breaching the limit is punishable with a six-month driving ban.

Sales measures

Licensing

Licenses are required in Turkey to sell or serve alcohol, including beer. Alcohol can be sold in markets only between 6 am and 10 pm, but there is no time limit in restaurants, bars, etc. Student dormitories, health institutions, sports clubs, education institutions and some

filling station A filling station, also known as a gas station () or petrol station (), is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. The most common fuels sold in the 2010s were gasoline (or petrol) and diesel fuel. Gasoli ...

s are prohibited from selling alcohol. Licenses are given by the local municipalities and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Ministry of Health.

Tax

The high tax on the alcoholic beverages, called special consumption tax ( tr, Özel Tüketim Vergisi or ''ÖTV''), was established first in 2002 and dramatically increased in 2010 by the government of the Justice and Development Party, whose leadership is known for their aversion to alcohol. For instance, the increase in prices of an average

rakı Rakı or raki (, Turkish pronunciation: ) is an alcoholic drink made of twice-distilled grapes. It is the national drink of Turkey. It is also popular in other Balkan countries as an Apéritif and digestif, apéritif as well as in Kazakhstan. I ...

, a traditional Turkish alcoholic beverage, was only slightly higher than the regular inflation, 204% to 206%, from 2003 when Justice and Development Party came into the office until 2012. However, between 2013 and 2020, the average price of

has far more exceeded the inflation of commodity prices, 359% to 213%, due to the high tax rates. The high taxes on alcohol is related to a significant rise in smuggling and fraud involving alcoholic beverages in the country. Bootlegging is blamed for the

alcohol poisoning Alcohol intoxication, also known as alcohol poisoning, commonly described as drunkenness or inebriation, is the negative behavior and physical effects caused by a recent consumption of alcohol. In addition to the toxicity of ethanol, the main ps ...

in Turkey, including the 2011 Turkish Riviera mass alcohol poisoning and causality of at least 67 people to methyl alcohol poisoning in October 2020.

Advertising and promotion

In 2013, new laws banned most forms of advertising and promotion for alcoholic beverages on radio and television, including promoting such related sponsored activities, festivals and giveaways. Hurriyet Daily News, 24 May 2013
Turkish Parliament adopts alcohol restrictions, bans sale between 10 pm and 6 am
/ref> Beverage companies ran ads criticizing the ban. The law also included a requirement to blur depictions of alcoholic beverages on television and in television films, as was already done for cigarettes, and for bottles to carry health warnings similar to

tobacco packaging warning messages Tobacco package warning messages are Warning label, warning messages that appear on the Cigarette pack, packaging of cigarettes and other tobacco products concerning their Health effects of tobacco, health effects. They have been implemented in a ...

. These laws did not affect

online media Digital media is any communication media that operate in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, and preserved on a digital electronics device. ' ...

, and significant protest grew against the ban on platforms such as

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Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

Ekşi Sözlük Ekşi Sözlük (; "Sour Dictionary", stylized as ekşi sözlük) is a collaborative hypertext dictionary based on the concept of Web sites built up on user contribution. However, Ekşi Sözlük is not a dictionary in the strict sense; users are ...

and

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

. A 2011 ban by the Tobacco and Alcohol Market Regulatory Authority on advertising in sports meant the basketball team Efes Pilsen S.K had to change its name and rebrand as Anadolu Efes S.K.,Announcement
, efesbasket.org as the name “Efes Pilsen” was a company-branch group who owned the club within the Efes company, that is a significant and popular beverage company in Turkey and around

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

, which is still the club’s owner and main sponsor as of today.

Regulations

The laws were regulated by the

Tobacco and Alcohol Market Regulatory Authority The Tobacco and Alcohol Market Regulatory Authority ( tr, Tütün ve Alkol Piyasası Düzenleme Kurumu, TAPDK) was a government organization in Turkey with responsibility for regulation of smoking in Turkey and enforcement of alcohol laws of Tur ...

until 24 December 2017. Since then the laws are regulated by Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Turkey.

Proposed new measures

A governmental act imposed in January 2011 proposed restricting the sale of alcohol at certain events to persons under 24 years of age rather than the official and legal age of 18 as it was previously established. However, the restriction was later overturned by the courts and deemed

unconstitutional Constitutionality is said to be the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution; "Webster On Line" the status of a law, a procedure, or an act's accordance with the laws or set forth in the applicable constitution. When l ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alcohol Laws Of Turkey Law of Turkey Alcohol in Turkey

Religion in Turkey Society of Turkey