Measures Must Be Taken for Stronger Tobacco, World Health Organization Warns

Reported from Geneva, the World Health Organization (WHO) reminds people that more than 7 million premature deaths are caused by tobacco-related incidents—not only is tobacco a detriment to health, but it is also a heavy drain on economies. As today is “World No Tobacco” day, the World Health Organization has urged governments around the world to take control measures against tobacco for the health and safety of all within many societies.

Considering tobacco a threat to development, the World Health Organization realizes that “tobacco costs the global economy $1.4 trillion a year,” while simultaneously taking lives. This estimate only factors “medical expenses and lost productive capacities,” into consideration. Although control measures have already been taken in the past, the World Health Organization says that tobacco-related deaths increase every day because such measures take time to make an impact.

WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative program manager Vinayak Prasad says, “What we are seeing is that if the policies were not in place, the number of 7.2 million would have been higher.  We are seeing a reduction of tobacco use prevalence in most countries.  The only regions now which are seeing higher growth are the African continent and Middle Eastern region.  The rest of the world is seeing a decline.”

Not only does tobacco-use lead to premature death, but it also results in severe diseases and disabilities such as “blindness, amputation, impotence and poor oral health.”  Andrew Black of the WHO Framework Convention describes that smoking has made its way into the youthful generation, influencing teens and adolescences.  He says, “it is crucial to reduce the number of young people taking up smoking in the first place.  We must stop the tobacco industry’s powerful advertising and promotion, which can all too often be oriented toward young people.”

            Widening social inequalities, tobacco also serves as an agent, spreading poverty around the world; it digs people in deeper holes than they had begun with, before smoking.  Black adds, “We know that those living on lower incomes in virtually all countries are likely to smoke, and therefore more likely to suffer the consequences of tobacco use… High rates of tobacco use being promoted by aggressive strategies from the tobacco industry are projected to lead to a doubling of the number of taco-related deaths in low-and middle-income countries between 2010 and 2030.”

Marking “World No Tobacco” day today, the United Nations Development Program, along with the WHO Framework Convention, has issued a study on the harmful effects of tobacco regarding both health and sustainability.  UNDP program specialist Dudley Tarlton notes, “it affects poverty.  It affects hunger.  Education is affected.  Children get ear infections because they are exposed to household smoke in the home.”

Cigarettes do not only pose a threat to health and the economy, but also to the environment as well.  Besides the use of paper and trees to mass-manufacture the rolled-up tobacco, many harmful agrochemicals are used in the process of farming and harvesting the tobacco crop.  Prasad explains that “deforestation is already happening… for every 300 cigarettes, we need to cut a tree… Even conservatively, if we are looking at 6 trillion cigarettes, we are looking at almost 15 to 20 billion trees to cut.  We have 6 trillion trees in the world, so we are almost looking at a big cut, which is going to happen.”

The tobacco industry evidently produces more negatives than positives in this developing society.  Will people just stand aside while it deteriorates the health, economy, and environment of the world?