Preventing Tobacco Addiction Among Our Women

The recently released statistics by the World Health Organisation (WHO) of an increasing global trend of women and girls who have taken to the deadly habit of tobacco smoking is scary. Of the 5.4 million victims that die every year, 1.5 million are girls and women. In half of the 151 countries recently surveyed, approximately as many girls use tobacco as boys. WHO even claims that Nigeria is not only amongst these countries but now has more female smokers than males. Contestable as this may seem, it is no doubt a warning signal that urgent intervention from all concerned organs of government is necessary.

According to WHO’s Director General, Dr. Margaret Chan, the trend in some countries is “extremely worrisome”. She also asserts that that tobacco use “is neither liberating nor glamorous”, contrary to the advert campaign of the marketers. It is probable that this misconception is helping to lure more girls into the widening web of the addictive consumption.
The theme of the 2010 anti-tobacco campaign is focused on ‘tobacco and women’, with an emphasis on marketing to women and the concomitant harmful effects. Similarly, the need for governments to ban the advertising, promotion and sponsorship of tobacco is being highlighted, with the aim of eliminating tobacco smoke from all public places. The goal is in tandem with WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
A new strategy being used by manufacturers and marketers is to link smoking with attractiveness, which easily fascinates young girls, ultimately making them helpless victims. Nigeria’s inclusion in countries with worsening tobacco use, it has been revealed, is also traceable to the harmful effects of passive or second-hand smoking. Also, growing social frustration caused by poor governance has led to mass youth unemployment and the erroneous belief that smoking offers some relief, even if temporarily. Up North, seasonal harsh weather sometimes induces more people into smoking. Unfortunately, they end up harming their pulmonary system more than they care to know.
Smoking refers basically to the habit of inhaling smoke from cigarettes. Not a few teenagers imbibe it from their parents, relations and friends, who are smokers. The health consequences are grave, however, for the users as well as those around them. According to the WHO, tobacco smoke contains some 4,000 deadly chemicals, chief of which are vaporized nicotine, carbon monoxide and tar, concentrated at the end of the cigarette stick. The first signs of ill health arising from tobacco use is a slight cough, which graduates to bronchial cough, that later degenerates into lung cough. Research specialists explain that the toxic chemicals settle at the junction of the bronchus and bronchioles, where most cases of lung cancer begin. In addition, the membranes lining the respiratory system become thickened with the irritating chemicals. This causes the removal of the protective cilia which normally absorb dust and pathogenic microbes that could cause life-threatening diseases.
Once the smoke is continually inhaled it contracts the air passage and constricts the voice box or larynx, leading to swollen vocal cords and smokers’ cough. In severe cases, it causes chronic bronchitis and laryngeal cancer. In addition, the presence of the aldehydes in smoke worsens stomach ulcer. Smoke reduces the oxygen-carrying capacity of blood, thereby weakening the power of the cells to function optimally. Its deposits narrow the arteries, causing gangrene, leading to amputation for some victims.
Researches since 1939 have indicated the bad effects of smoking in advanced countries. But the WHO says that today over 80 percent of the world’s one billion smokers live in low- and middle-income countries. This reflects the fact that several major cigarette manufacturers have relocated from the advanced economies with their more stringent anti-tobacco laws, and are now consciously exporting death to the developing countries. According to the Programme Manager of Environmental Rights in Nigeria, an affiliate of Friends Of The Earth, Akin Oluwafemi, two persons die each day in Lagos hospitals as a consequence of tobacco–related ailments.
This is a dangerous trend, and we are alarmed, in this connection, that the Senator Olorunimbe Mamora-sponsored Anti-tobacco Bill is suffering from what he terms deliberate moves to scuttle it by some of his colleagues. The fact that the Senate Committee on Health is headed by a female lawmaker, Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, and the focus of this year’s anti-tobacco theme is on discouraging women from smoking, should help to speed up the bill’s passage into law.
Expansion in economic production, leading to mass creation of jobs especially for the idle youth, will reduce the helplessness of the government in accepting the short-term economic benefits of tobacco manufacturing in the country. What use is it, in the long run, to offer jobs to some citizens in tobacco factories and farms, and pay taxes into the public coffers, only for the people’s health to be destroyed some years later at a prohibitive cost to public health care and citizens’ purses? The government cannot fold its arms and allow this preventable scourge to ravage the public, already battling with a legion other woes. No effort should be spared in discouraging Nigerian smokers, especially the future mothers of our children, from preventable death.

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Say no to smoking, women urged

By Adenike Ashogbon

The campaign against tobacco received a boost recently when the Environmental Rights Action and Friends of the Earth (ERA/FoEN) organized a symposium to sensitize the public, especially the female folks about tobacco and its many side effects.
Tagged: ‘Gender and Tobacco with an Emphasis on Marketing to Women’, the event was aimed at drawing global attention to the debilitating ailments caused by tobacco in Nigeria and also to call on the National Assembly to fast track the passage of the National Tobacco Control Rights as well as smoke-free laws to protect non-smokers, including women.
Mr. Akinbode Oluwafemi, the Programme Manager for ERA/FoEN who spoke on the negative side effects of smoking, urged Nigerians, especially the female folks to say no to any form of deceitful marketing of cigarette as this could pose dire consequences on their physical and mental well-being.
Speaking in the same vein, Dr. (Mrs.) Kemi Odukoya of the Lagos State Teaching Hospital, observed that: "women may find it more difficult to quit smoking than men and they are at higher risk of illness.

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Report of the Symposium by ERA/FoEN to Mark the 2010 World No Tobacco Day

In commemoration of the 2010 World No Tobacco Day (May 31st), the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth office in Lagos held a symposium that attracted about 100 participants drawn from Lagos and Ogun State.
The symposium which held at the Excellence Hotel in Lagos dwelt on this year’s theme: ‘Tobacco and Gender, With Emphasis on Marketing to Women’. It had speakers drawn from the medical, journalism, consumer rights and other backgrounds.
A lively and enlightening event, it witnessed lectures, speeches, a playlet, song and poetry presentations, testimonies from former smokers and question and answer sessions.

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In her opening remark, Betty Abah, ERA/FoEN’s Gender Focal Person said the theme of this year’s WNTD was timely because it would help put the searchlight on the mostly ignored fact that women are major victims of the tobacco epidemic either as second hand smokers or as those at the receiving end of the aggressive and deceptive marketing devices of the killer tobacco industry. ‘Through systematic, steady and penetrating marketing devices estimated to cost $ 13 Billion annually, they have targeted poor, struggling countries... and are now recruiting women, who traditionally, do not smoke as much...’she noted.
According to Abah, the World Health Organisation’s statistics show that there are over a billion smokers in the world today, 250 of which are women and therefore account for the 5.5 million people killed from tobacco-related diseases. She called on women to take up their rights to health and prevent further mortality in the hands of spouses, male colleagues and other smokers, and also to pressurize stakeholders to promulgate laws that would ensure smoke-free atmospheres. She cited the example of India where the tobacco control advocates are now calling for smoke-free homes and cars to safeguard the health of women and children.

In an illustrative presentation tagged ‘Tobacco and Women: Time for Action’, Mr. Akinbode Oluwafemi, ERA/FoEN’s program manager, head of Lagos office and of the Tobacco Control desk presented facts and figures supporting the fact that tobacco use was a looming disaster in Nigeria, and also that more and more women are taking up the deadly habit. Some of the statistics include:

. Adult smoking rate in Nigeria is put at 17 per cent.
. The smoking rate implies that there are over 13 million active smokers in Nigeria.
. Since half of smokers die of tobacco related diseases, it also go to show that over 6.5 million Nigerians are on death row due to tobacco addiction.

Mr. Oluwafemi noted that the tobacco industry is currently utilizing fashion shows, movies and special ‘feminine brands’ to attract women. He called for the implementation of the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) which entails the banning of smoking in public places, raising the taxes on tobacco products, as well as support for the National Tobacco Bill sponsored by ERA/FoEN, and which is currently at the National Assembly. ‘Until that is done, our women will continue to bear the greatest brunt of the tobacco epidemic. Apart from active tobacco use, they will continue to be victims of second-hand smokes considering that they do not have negotiating power such as to stop their men from smoking around them, ‘ he added.

Dr. Kemi Odukoya, of the Community Health Department at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba in her presentation pointed out that women are at a higher health risk than men. She pointed out a recent study which showed that:

• Women who smoke are more likely to develop lung cancer than male smokers
• Women also seem to need fewer cigarettes to do so
• Women also find it more difficult than men to quit smoking

Besides the general cancer consequences, she said smoking causes grievous harms to a woman’s cardiovascular system, lung function, reproductive health, bone density, affects her during pregnancy, not to mention the harm on her mental health, and multifaceted social and economic effects. Other major health effect peculiar to women are menstrual problems, pelvic inflammatory disease, reduced fertility and premature menopause.

And, on second hand smoke, she added that owing to constant exposures in home and workplaces, researches have it that globally, of the approximately 430 000 adult deaths caused every year by second-hand smoke, about 64% occur in women.

Ugonmah Cokey, former states chairperson of the Nigeria Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ), gave a presentation on how journalists can utilize their mediums to stem the smoking tide and shame the merchants of death.

Mr. Lanre Oginni, executive director of All Nigeria Consumer Movement Union (ANCOMU), gave an impassioned speech on the rights of consumers to smoke-free environments.

One of the most emotional and captivating talks came from Mr. Leke Adeneye, a former smoker. Adeneye, a journalist spoke on his 13-year ordeal. He started smoking at about age 14 and when he quit 13 years later, the habit had devastated his health, his social life and ultimately cost him his education as he dabbled into drugs, cultism and had to be rusticated from the University of Lagos. A second attempt at re-entering the university was also bungled as he arrived late into the entrance exams hall at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Osun State, from the kiosk where he had gone to take long drags at cigarettes. He finally quit the deadly habit when he noticed symptoms of oral cancer. He used the opportunity to warn youngsters on the consequences of smoking. ‘Cigarette burnt my pockets, my health and almost cost me my life. Don’t let it happen to you,’ he admonished.

Another former smoker, Mr. Donatus Nwaogu, also spoke about his ugly experience.

About 30 students drawn from three schools attended the event and participated actively. They include students of Ikeja Senior Grammar School, Oshodi, Lagos, Perfect Praise Secondary School, Olowora, Lagos, and Champions International Secondary School, Magboro, Ogun State. They were poetry and songs presentations from the first two, and a playlet titled ‘Oh, Smokers!’ from students of Champions International Secondary School which drew a loud applause from the audience.

ERA’s tobacco control materials (including the haunting ‘Body of a Smoker’ adapted from a WHO publication) were given out to the guests. Being a ladies’ day, the older female participants also received special gifts in the form of purple-coloured purses from ERA female staff attired in purple Ankara materials, and who worked as ushers.

Besides the huge media coverage at the event, Mr. Oluwafemi granted an interview at NN24, a new satellite television station in Ikeja, Lagos, on the theme of the day.

In all, it was a day to remember, a fun time, but also a time to reflect on a global health issue, to warn of the danger of a deadly habit, and to strategize for actions that will save lives.

Betty Abah
Gender Focal Person

Growing Concerns Over Use Of Tobacco Among Youths

Author

The use of tobacco by youths in Nigeria has continued to elicit concerns from well meaning citizens of this country. One of the arrowheads of the campaign against the use of tobacco by youngsters is Mr. Akinbode Oluwafemi, the programme manager of the Environmental Rights in Nigeria.
In a statement issued on the 2010 World Tobacco day, Oluwafemi said: “It is a fact that dangers are associated with smoking. The World Health Organisation estimated that a millions of people die every day from tobacco-related diseases, with the majority of these deaths happening in developing countries.
“Tobacco is the only consumer product that is guaranteed to kill half of its cunsuomers if used according to manufacturer’s intention. It contains more than 4,000 dangerous chemicals harmful to the body. It is also a fact that stringent measures aimed at reducing smoking in Europe and America have driven the tobacco industry to developing countries like Nigeria, where the industry continues to flout regulations, marketing to young and impressionable people and hooking them on smoking.”
Oluwafemi pointed it out that a survey results showed that two persons die each day in Lagos hospitals as a result of tobacco-related ailments.
Also championing the cause of anti-tobacco campaign is Senator Olorunnimbe Mamora who presented a bill to the upper House of the National Assembly. The bill, which is yet to be passed into law, seeks to ban smoking in public and end all forms of promotion of the product in the country.
Mamora, who was exasperated that some people had been trying to scuttle the bill from being passed into law, said in an interview that “no amount of propaganda; no amount of purported job creation by the British American Tobacco can justify the number of lives being destroyed through the use of tobacco. This is because certain incontrovertible evidence has been established linking tobacco use to various diseases.”
Apart from the concern raised by Oluwafemi and Mamora, the World Health Organisation listed Nigeria among countries where more girls smoke tobacco than boys who do same.
According to WHO, “More girls use tobacco than boys in some of the countries including Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria and Uruguay.”
We are equally worried about the rate at which our youths consume tobacco with reckless abandon. Despite the health risks associated with smoking tobacco, our youths still indulge in the habit formed out of ignorance or sheer recklessness.
But we believe the most effective method for curbing the menace is for government to enact laws that will make it hard for tobacco companies to operate fully. This perhaps will make many of them close shop and it will consequently make tobacco a scarce commodity.
Parents should also train their children well. Religious institutions also have a role to play in counselling youths on how to kick the bad habit. If we can successfully reduce the rate of tobacco use we will also significantly reduce the rate of mortality in the country arising from the use of tobacco.

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FCT tasks N’Assembly on Smoking Bill

From Terhemba Daka, Abuja

THE Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has called on the National Assembly to expedite action on the passage of the bill on tobacco smoking to aid it in the fight against smoking in public places in the territory.

The FCT Minister, Senator Bala Mohammed, on Tuesday declared that unless the parliament passes the of legislation into law, the administration’s avowed commitment to stopping smoking in public places in the nation’s capital would be a ruse. “The passage of the bill before the National Assembly will give us the necessary impetus and backing for the enforcement”, he said. Mohammed, who decried the prevalence of smokers in spite of the ban on tobacco smoking in Abuja by the administration, spoke at a press conference to commemorate the 2010 World No Tobacco Day, which was held in Abuja yesterday.

Represented by the Federal Capital Territory Secretary for Health and Human Services, Dr. Precious Gbeneol, the minister stressed that without the anti-tobacco law in place, the ban on smoking in the capital territory cannot be effectively enforced.

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Women smokers at higher risk than men

By Adeola Adeyemo

Women who smoke or expose themselves to involuntary smoking are at a higher risk of contacting lung cancer, strokes, and heart attacks than men.
This was disclosed on Monday by Kemi Odukoya, a medical practitioner with the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, at a symposium in commemoration of World No Tobacco Day organised by Environmental Rights Action and Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) in Lagos. This year’s theme was ‘Gender and Tobacco with an emphasis on marketing to women.’
According to Dr. Odukoya, women who smoke are two to six times as likely to suffer a heart attack as non-smoking women; and women smokers have a higher relative risk of developing cardiovascular disease than men.
“Cardiovascular disease, including heart attacks and strokes, is the overall leading cause of death among women worldwide,” she said. “Smoking accounts for one of every five deaths from cardiovascular disease.”
Target on women
“Tobacco companies are spending heavily on alluring marketing campaigns that target women,” said Dr. Odukoya. “Women are gaining spending power and independence. Therefore, they are more able to afford tobacco and feel freer to use it.”
Akinbode Oluwafemi, programme manager of ERA/FoEN advised women to beware of deceitful adverts, sponsorship, and misleading branding from the tobacco industry.
“There should be a ban of all forms of advertisements that falsely link tobacco use with female beauty, empowerment and health,” he said. “There should also be a ban of misleading identifiers as ‘light’ or ‘low-tar’ and pictorial warnings on cigarette packs to depict risks involved in smoking.”
Media is key
Former chairman of the Lagos chapter of Nigerian Association of Women Journalists, Ugonma Cokey, who spoke at the symposium, urged the media to play a key role to in disseminating information to the people on the harmful effects of tobacco.
“As primary source for information dissemination, the media represents a key source of health information for the general public, tobacco health related issues being one of them,” she said. “News coverage that supports tobacco control has been shown to set the agenda for further change at the community, state, and national levels, an indication that media advocacy is an important but under utilized area of tobacco control.”
Mrs. Cokey added that with the alarming statistics on the harmful effects of tobacco, it was necessary to tackle the issue of smoking as a public health issue.
“More than 5 million people die from tobacco related causes, more than HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB combined,” she said. “Tobacco is the single greatest cause of preventable death in the US and Worldwide.”
Protecting women
The gender focal person for ERA/FoEN, Betty Abah, said that there is a lot of harm when women use tobacco or are exposed to tobacco smoke.
“Thousands of women die every year because their husbands smoke,” she said. “As women, we have a duty to protect ourselves from such harmful practices and should start a national movement for women to insist on their rights.”

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Anti-tobacco campaign not yet success

By Gbenro Adeoye

As the splatter of the morning rain sounded on the roofing of his workshop, Femi Abayomi, an artist, puffed harder on his cigarette, undeterred by the health warning now boldly written on cigarette packs.
Mr Abayomi says he is not yet ready to give up his smoking habit, a routine he has kept to for 18 years, adding that it would take more than “health warning prints” to kill his addiction to cigarette smoking.
“I’ve tried several times to drop the habit but it’s been very difficult to do, you know. Smoking has its own advantages; it prevents cold, relaxes the mind, induces sleep, and aids digestion,” he says.
Killer tobacco
According to the WHO (World Health Organisation), tobacco use is the second cause of death worldwide, after hypertension, killing one in 10 adults with more than five million deaths from related causes.
WHO also estimates that tobacco will be the leading cause of death worldwide by 2030, killing about 10 million people annually, with 70 to 80 per cent of the deaths occurring in low and middle income countries, like Nigeria.
Smokers’ doggedness
In spite of the frightening WHO data and various campaigns against tobacco smoking, many smokers continue to disregard the calls, arguing that available statistics do not substantiate the role of tobacco in the death of cancer patients.
“We don hear of people wey no dey smoke (non-smokers) who die of cancer, and we dey see old people wey don dey smoke since dem dey young, wey live old and don’t die of cancer, so nothing that say the cancer people get am from tobacco,” says Rabiu Jimoh, a road transport worker, who has been smoking for about 10 years.
The World No Tobacco Day was initiated in 1987 by the World Health Assembly to give the tobacco epidemic and its effects global attention, and promote adherence to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which highlights specific tobacco control measures.
Effecting a comprehensive ban
As stated in Article 13 of the Framework about putting a comprehensive ban on Tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, the WHO over the weekend urged “governments to protect the world’s 1.8 billion young people by imposing a ban on all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.”
Nigerian smokers have, however, argued that such an action would be counter-productive, as this would make youth more curious.
“Everyone already knows about cigarettes; it’s already a popular product. Complete banning of adverts will only make the young ones more curious, and want to try it out,” says Mr Abayomi.
Smoking in public places is already prohibited in Nigeria, an offence punishable by fine or imprisonment, but Mr Abayomi suggests that only visual effects of tobacco can deter smoking addicts and protect the youth from picking up the habit.
“If they start showing video footages of the health implications and effects to people, on T.V, at work, and in schools, that’s only when people will come to terms with the practical effects of everything,” Mr Abayomi says.

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FCTA To Ban Smoking In Aso Rock, NASS

FCT to designate Presidential Villa, SGF Office no-smoking zones

-Yekeen Nurudeen

AS the world marked the anti-smoking day yesterday, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Senator Bala Mohammed, has spoken of plans to designate certain places as no-smoking areas.
He stated that the step was in furtherance of his administration’s ban on smoking in public places within the FCT.
Among the places to be designated no-smoking areas are: the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Office of the Secretary to Federal Government, the National Assembly and other top government offices.
Speaking at a press briefing to commemorate the “2010 World No Tobacco Day,” the minister explained that the no-smoking ban bill before the National Assembly, when passed, would give the needed bites to the enforcement of the ban in the FCT.
Mohammed, who spoke through the FCT Secretary for Health and Human Services, Dr. Precious Gbenoi, stated that without the bill, which he noted, will soon scale the second reading in the National Assembly, the FCT administration would not be able to fully enforce the ban on smoking in public places.
“We cannot completely and fully arrest people smoking in public places without the law being passed. It is expected that the bill will pass the second reading at the National Assembly, but we will continue to enlighten the people on the dangers of smoking to the smokers and the passive smokers,” he said.
He appealed to the National Assembly to hasten the passage of the bill into law, noting that the FCT administration would not relent in its campaign against tobacco smoking by all categories of people.

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Minister to ban smoking in Aso Rock, NASS, other places

By Henry Umoru

ABUJA—MINISTER of the Federal Capital Territory Administration, FCTA, Senator Bala Mohammed disclosed yesterday that arrangements have been concluded to ban smoking in Aso Rock Presidential Villa, the National Assembly Complex, the Federal Secretariat Complex, his office and other public buildings, as well as parks in the nation’s capital city.
The Minister who noted that no place was above the law, as well as individual persons no matter how highly placed the person might be, warned that he was prepared to bring those who break the law to book, adding, “nobody is above the law, if you commit an offence, you will face the full wrath of the law whether in high places, a law is a law, the citizens must abide by it. Cigarette smoking is a big risk to us, not only to the person, but those around us.”
Addressing newsmen yesterday as part of activities to mark this year’s No Tobacco Smoking Day, Senator Bala Mohammed who appealed to members of the National Assembly to pass the Anti-Smoking Bill to enable authorities enforce the ban on smoking in public places, stressed that all these are designed to intensify the fight against smoking.
The Minister who spoke through the FCT Secretary of Health and Human Services, Precious Kalamba Gbeneol said with the right political will, the anti-smoking laws will be effectively enforced, just as he lamented that the Tobacco Control Act of 1990 which prescribes a fine of N200 for public smoking was already obsolete and inadequate to address the problem.

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Today is 2010 World No Tobacco Day

Women losing the battle against tobacco use

By Ben Ukwuoma

AS the world marks this year’s World No Tobacco Day, the evidence of tobacco use among young females is increasing in many countries and regions. This has reopened the call for governments to ban all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship and to eliminate tobacco smoking in all public and work places as provided in the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. PETRESE is not only pretty, she is intelligent, too. She is also from a family that is comfortable. That gave her an early expose to many good and bad things in life. One of the bad things she herself admits to nowadays is smoking.

At 24, she has double Master’s degrees. She drinks strong alcohol like fish drinks water. And she lights another stick of cigarette before she snuffs off an earlier one. Since the last two odd years, she intermittently coughs and no medication has been able to cure it. Just last week, a comprehensive medical check on her lungs revealed large dark spots. Her physician last week broke the news of an affliction of cancer of the lungs to her heart-broken parents. Petrese is on the fast lane to early death.

But she is not alone. There are many, old and young, men and women, illiterate and elites who are hooked on excessive use of tobacco. Medically, it has been confirmed that of the over five million people who die each year from tobacco use, approximately 1.5 million are women.

Unless urgent action is taken, experts say that tobacco use could kill more than eight million people by 2030, of whom 2.5 million would be women.

Approximately, three-quarters of these female deaths would occur in the low-income and middle-income countries that are least able to absorb such losses. Every one of these premature deaths would have been avoidable.In some countries, the bigger threat to women is from exposure to the smoke of others, particularly men. Isidore S. Obot of the Department of General and Applied Psychology, University of Jos, Plateau State, carried out a study on the incidence of cigarette smoking, cigar/pipe tobacco and snuff use in the Nigerian population. In a sample of 1,271 adult heads of household (1,137 males, 134 females), the overall prevalence of regular smoking was 22.6 per cent. The proportions of regular cigar/pipe tobacco and snuff users were 17.9 per cent and 9.6 per cent. Among cigarette smokers, 60.6 per cent smoked at least half a pack a day, 11.2 per cent at least one pack a day. Males smoked more than females. The poor, uneducated respondents smoked more than the relatively rich and educated. Smoking was more rampant in the third decade of life than in other age groups. Smokers had a higher incidence of health problems and both nonsmokers and heavy smokers were less aware of the risk of smoking than light smokers. In the light of the above, it is suggested that health education should be a major component of tobacco and health policy in Nigeria. The harmful health effects of smoking cigarettes presented below only begin to convey the longterm side effects of smoking. Quitting makes sense for many reasons but simply put: Smoking is bad for health.Worldwide, of the approximately 430,000 adult deaths caused every year by second-hand smoke, about 64 per cent occur in women.

On World No Tobacco Day 2010 today, focus is on the harm which tobacco marketing and smoke do to women. At the same time, it seeks to make men more aware of their responsibility to avoid smoking around the women with whom they live and work.

Women, and men, must be protected from tobacco industry marketing and smoke, as stated in the preamble to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. In effect since 2005, this international treaty acknowledges "the increase in smoking and other forms of tobacco consumption by women and young girls worldwide" and explicitly recognises "the need for gender-specific tobacco control strategies".

Unfortunately, less than nine per cent of the world's population is covered by comprehensive advertising bans. Only 5.4 per cent is covered by comprehensive national smoke-free laws.The rising epidemic of tobacco use among women has forced the WHO to issue an alert, calling countries to protect women and girls against the sickness and suffering caused by tobacco use. In half of the 151 countries recently surveyed for trends in tobacco use among young people, approximately as many girls used tobacco as boys. More girls used tobacco than boys in some of the countries, including Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Cook Islands, Croatia, Czech Republic, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria and Uruguay.WHO Director-General, Dr. Margaret Chan says: "Tobacco use is neither liberating nor glamorous. It is addictive and deadly."

This year’s campaign theme, “gender and tobacco” with an emphasis on “marketing to women”, focuses on the harmful effects of tobacco marketing towards women and girls.It also highlights the need for governments to ban all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship and to eliminate tobacco smoke in all public and work places as provided in the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.Women are a major target for the tobacco industry in its effort to recruit new users to replace those who will quit or die prematurely from tobacco-related diseases.

"We know that tobacco advertising increasingly targets girls," said WHO Assistant Director-General for Non-communicable Diseases and Mental Health, Dr. Ala Alwan. "This campaign calls attention to the tobacco industry's attempts to market its deadly products by associating tobacco use with beauty and liberation."

Often the threat to women is less from their being enticed to smoke or chew tobacco than from their being exposed to the smoke of others, particularly men.

"By enforcing the WHO Framework Convention, governments can reduce the toll of fatal and crippling heart attacks, strokes, cancers and respiratory diseases that have become increasingly prevalent among women," says Dr. Douglas Bettcher, Director of WHO's Tobacco Free Initiative.

WHO calls on governments and the public to demand a ban on all forms of tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship; to support implementation and strong enforcement of legislation to provide 100 per cent protection from tobacco smoke in all public and work places; and to take global action to advocate for women's freedom from tobacco. The health hazards of smoking are well documented, and prevention of smoking has been described as the single greatest opportunity for preventing non-communicable disease in the world today.Cigarette smoking during pregnancy is said to increase the risk of low birth weight, prematurity, spontaneous abortion, reduction in breast milk and perinatal mortality in humans, which has been referred to as the fetal tobacco syndrome. Smoking increases women's risk for cancer of the cervix. There is a possible link between active smoking and premenopausal breast cancer.

The health effects of tobacco are the circumstances, mechanisms, and factors of tobacco consumption on human health. Epidemiological research has been focused primarily on tobacco smoking, which has been studied more extensively than any other form of consumption.

Tobacco use leads most commonly to diseases affecting the heart and lungs, with smoking being a major risk factor for heart attacks, strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, and cancer (particularly lung cancer, cancers of the larynx and mouth, and pancreatic cancer). It also causes peripheral vascular disease and hypertension, all developed due to the exposure time and the level of dosage of tobacco. Furthermore, the earlier and the higher level of tar content in the tobacco-filled cigarettes cause the greater risk of these diseases.

Cigarettes sold in developing nations are said to have higher tar content, and are less likely to be filtered, potentially increasing vulnerability to tobacco-related disease in these regions.Smoke contains several carcinogenic pyrolytic products that bind to deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and cause many genetic mutations. There are over 19 known chemical carcinogens in cigarette smoke. Tobacco also contains nicotine, which is a highly addictive psychoactive chemical.

When tobacco is smoked, nicotine causes physical and psychological dependency. Tobacco use is also a significant factor in miscarriages among pregnant smokers. It contributes to a number of other threats to the health of the foetus such as premature births and low birth weight and increases by 1.4 to three times the chance for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). The result of scientific studies done in neonatal rats seems to indicate that exposure to cigarette smoke in the womb may reduce the foetal brain's ability to recognise hypoxic conditions, thus increasing the chance of accidental asphyxiation.

Incidence of impotence is approximately 85 per cent higher in male smokers compared to non-smokers, and it is a key cause of erectile dysfunction (ED).

Generally, women's reasons for smoking often differ from men's. The tobacco industry cons many women into believing that smoking is a sign of liberation, and many women wrongly view smoking as a good way of keeping slim.Controlling the epidemic of tobacco among women is an important part of any tobacco control strategy. As Mrs. Chan said: "Protecting and promoting the health of women is crucial to health and development – not only for the citizens of today but also for those of future generation. In many countries, vastly more men smoke than women, and many of those countries fail to protect nonsmokers adequately”.

In many countries, women are powerless to protect themselves, and their children, from second-hand smoke.

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Women smokers risk early death, cancer

As the World No Tobacco Day approaches, the United States (US)-based National Cancer Institute has warned that women who smoke have higher risks than non smokers of early death and of developing cancer and other diseases related to the heart and lungs.
Also, women who smoke have been causioned to desist from doing so as they may experience early menopause and irregular painful menstrual period.
According to a study by Inga Cecilie Soerheim and her colleagues from the University of Bergen, Norway, cigarette smoking is more harmful to women than to men because women have smaller airways.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimate that 20 per cent of smokers are women.
Similarly, research has shown that most women that smoke are between the ages of 25 and 44. Besides, teenage women also make up a significant percentage, too.
Research has shown that smoking is hazardous for pregnant women. It affects the health of not only the mother but also the child.
Smoking during pregnancy may result in low birth weight, premature delivery and miscarriage. Smoking is also not advisable for those who are taking oral contraceptives because it increases the risk of stroke and heart attack in this group.
It is against this background that this year’s World No Tobacco Day that will be commemorated on Monday, March 31, has been stream lined to show how tobacco affects the female gender’s health. Although the World No Tobacco Day 2010 campaign will focuse on tobacco marketing to women, it will also take into account the need to protect boys and men from the tobacco companies’ tactics.
Smoking causes many health problems in women. It leads to irreparable damage to women’s health and to that of the people around them. A smoking habit may be difficult to break, but understanding the long-term damage may help overcome the addiction.
Apart from drawing particular attention to the harmful effects of tobacco marketing towards women and girls, the 2010 World No Tobacco Day will also highlight the need for the nearly 170 Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control to ban all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship in accordance with their constitutions or constitutional principles.
Explaining why the programme should focus on women, the WHO in its 2007 report, Gender and Tobacco Control: a Policy Brief, stated, “Generic tobacco control measures may not be equally or similarly effective in respect to the two sexes…[A] gendered perspective must be included…It is therefore important that tobacco control policies recognise and take into account gender norms, differences and responses to tobacco in order to reduce tobacco use and improve the health of men and women worldwide”.
In another 2007 report, Sifting the Evidence: Gender and Tobacco Control, WHO commented, “Both men and women need full information about the sex-specific effects of tobacco use…equal protection from gendere-based advertising and marketing and the development of sex-specific tobacco products by transnational tobacco companies…[and] gender-sensitive information about, and protection from, second-hand smoke and occupational exposure to tobacco or nicotine”.

By Sola Omisore


SOURCE