REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The president of Turkmenistan, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, has upped the ante on anti-smoking laws this week by banning the sale of all tobacco products in the country.

Quoted from Albawaba.com, shops in the country can apparently now face fines to the tune of $1,700 if caught selling cigarettes. Of course, this isn't exactly stopping things in their tracks—already, the sale of cigarettes on the black market has risen to over $11 a pack, according to the news site Chrono-TM, who reports on affairs under the country's repressive regime from outside.

This isn't the first time the subject of smoking has come up in the country—Berdymukhamedov is frequently seen in PR shoots riding a bicycle or doing similar healthy activities and has led an aggressive anti-smoking campaign country-wide. At the beginning of January, he removed Atadurd Odmanov, the head of the State Service for Protecting the Security of a Healthy Society, from his post as Colonel for failing to effectively coax Turkmenistan's smokers to stub out.

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