WORLD NO TOBACCO DAY THEME INFORMS HEALTH AUTHORITIES

LAST Sunday, World No Tobacco Day was commemorated worldwide under the theme “Protecting youth from industry manipulation and preventing them from nicotine and tobacco use”.  For the last three decades, the Guyana Consumers Association (GCA) maintained the struggle against tobacco use and was greatly helped by the impacting activities of PAHO/WHO.  Two well-known issues of the struggle were to have pictorial warnings carried on the boxes and containers of cigarettes and to have enacted comprehensive tobacco control legislation.   Both aims were achieved but it was somewhat a Pyrrhic victory since after three years the State has failed to enforce the Tobacco Control Act.  In this struggle against tobacco use and dissemination, the important contributions of Dr William Adu-krow,  the head of PAHO/WHO in Guyana and Dr Leslie Ramsammy, former Minister of Health must always be remembered.

Tobacco is one of the terrible scourges of humanity since it is a drug with a deadly and debilitating effect on users.  It causes a large number of ailments including heart disease, blood pressure, cancers of various kinds, lung diseases, debility, diabetes and teeth and mouth deterioration.  Worse, it is a habit-forming and addictive drug  It results in poor work performance, lack of promotion or even dismissal.  It leads to early deaths, leaving surviving families in distress and poverty.  With a large number of tobacco-related illness, greater pressure and expenditure are imposed on the health authorities.  Approximately eight million people die each year from tobacco-related illness and this is much higher than COVID-19 deaths.  Though tobacco causes greater loss of life than COVID-19, the pandemic causes more fear and anxiety because of the speed with which some of the patients infected with it die and because, so far, no cure or vaccine has been discovered for it.

Tobacco use in the Developed World has been steadily falling and this has led the Tobacco companies to concentrate their attention on the developing world for which they have developed successful marketing strategies including focusing on young teenagers.  PAHO’s  Assistant Director, Dr Jarbas Barbosa recent comment succinctly sums up this situation: “The tobacco industry needs young people to buy their products which may result in nicotine addiction so they become lifelong consumers.  This creates the opportunity to replace the eight million people worldwide who die of tobacco-related causes every year.  It is a matter of profits over people – an indefensible choice”.  The theme of this year’s World No Tobacco Day – “Protecting youth from industry manipulation and preventing them from nicotine and tobacco use” is encapsulated in Dr Barbosa’s comment.

In its release for World No Tobacco Day, PAHO/WHO reminded the public “Youth are a significant market segment of the  Industry since studies show nine out of ten smokers start before the age of eighteen.  Globally, more than 40 million young people, aged 13 to 15, have already started to use tobacco”.  PAHO/WHO has disclosed that the tobacco industry and their allies in the e-cigarette and allied industries spend more than 9 billion dollars annually on aggressive marketing tactics to recruit new customers, especially children and youth.  PAHO/WHO and consumer bodies worldwide are committed and pledged to vigorously debunk the myths which such marketing contrives and expose their deceptions.

In Guyana, when the Tobacco Control Act was passed by Parliament some three years ago the Consumer Association and the consumer community, in general, rejoiced.  Unfortunately, the Act was not enforced and the consumer community and PAHO/WHO who had worked so hard for the Bill to be made Law have expressed their disappointment.  Ms Kesaundra Alves, the Chairman of the Public Hospital Corporation, speaking on behalf of the Ministry of Public Health empathized with PAHO/WHO and remarked ” A lot more needs to be done concerning the enforcement of the Act.  We have a comprehensive piece of legislation, which, if implemented completely, can really fight the tobacco epidemic”.

When the Act is enforced, among its immediate activity would be to unmask nicotine attractively disguised in different packaging and different flavours;  ban smoking in public places such as bus parks, public transport, bars and restaurants, amusement parks;  as well as secondary smoking.  Further, smoking would only be permitted five meters outside of the boundaries of health care and educational facilities.  Ms Alves further intimated that the main reason for inhibiting the enforcement of the Act had been a shortage of finance.  However, since all political parties are committed to enforcing the Act, it is expected it will be enforced soon.

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