Smoking: Costly habit, captive addicts

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared smoking injurious to health but smokers are still puffing away. OSEYIZA OOGBODO takes a look into this highly addictive practice and its attending dangers.
Smoking for a long time has donned a toga of controversy as to its religious, social, economic and health implications. But, some time ago, the World Health Organisation (WHO) ruled: smoking is injurious to health.

Regardless of this development and the attending compliance at tobacco smoking reduction practically the world over, Nigeria’s case is peculiar: her residents keep smoking in both designated and undesignated areas as if unaware of the WHO proclamation. Betty Abah, an anti-smoking advocate, who is a member of the tobacco control team of the NGO, Environmental Rights Action (ERA) confirms that Nigerian smoking is actually on the increase. “According to the World Health Organisation’s global report two years ago, tobacco use is on the increase in the country especially among young women. It’s not to say women smoke more here, but it implies that more and more women are taking up the habit. It is especially so in tertiary institutions, which is a sad case because the impact of tobacco on the female body is faster and even more deadly than on their male counterparts.”

Getting cigarettes in Nigeria is very easy since they are available on virtually every street through those who have stalls and sitting areas for their cigarette purchasers who want to smoke right at the point of purchase. There are also beer parlours, general goods traders and traditional liquor sellers who offer the popular cigarette brands. Those who are in a hurry smoke while walking along the street. Funny enough, there is a Nigerian law that bans smoking in public places just like in most countries across the world. But it doesn’t seem effective going by the volume of public smoking.

Abah sheds light on the law. “Yes, the law is embedded in the new National Tobacco Control Bill. Public places are supposed to be smoke-free so as to safe-guard the health of non-smokers and also to reduce the general smoking rate. And, by public places, we mean places like restaurants, schools, airports, offices, any enclosed place where people gather. Public places in this context are not roadsides, streets or highways. However, the bill is awaiting Presidential Assent to make it a legal law.”

But even as smoking is rampant, be it in the day or night, there is a method to it. Men can smoke publicly anywhere they like during the day. It is however very difficult to see women smoking publicly in the daytime. But it is not as if they too don’t smoke in the daytime, but they do so in seclusion. For instance, at an event recently, a popular female fashion designer who needed to smoke her favourite brand of cigarette had to hide in a toilet to do so while men smoked care freely in the lobby in full public view. Yet, many of the smokers can’t do so in front of their parents, bosses, landlords and people they look up to because the Nigerian society frowns heavily on smoking. Once a person is known as a smoker, he is most times labelled a doubtful character, hence not taken seriously and treated with condescension. So if a man sometimes faces tribulation because he smokes, a woman who is known to smoke will face quite a tougher time of stigmatisation.

Such is the danger smoking is that it is clearly stated on cigarette packs that smokers are liable to die young. And death is what most humans fear most. If most humans had a choice, they wouldn’t want to die. But some of these same humans prefer to smoke even when they had been warned that smoking could kill them. As smoking is a terrible hazard to smokers themselves, the threat of second hand smoke (non-smokers inhaling cigarette smoke) is probably what is making experts make concrete moves to enforce a ban on smoking in public places. But as a matter of courtesy, people don’t really complain when they see people smoking even when the smell irritates them.

At a press conference to mark the 2008 World Heart Day, Prof. Ayodele Omotoso and Prof. Wale Oke, said, “Government should as a matter of urgency prohibit the habit of smoking in public places as cardiovascular experts have discovered effect of smoking is more harmful to non-smokers than actual smokers.” The issue of smoking is a very strange one, to say the least. Oluwagbohunmi Balogun, a committed chain smoker, says, “I love smoking. I can say I love it more than any other thing on earth.” He however concurs that “I never knew I would be a smoker, though. It is not something I can say that I planned to do. Somehow, it happened and I’m in love with it now.

“That I’m smoking sometimes makes me laugh when I think back to when I was in secondary school. I was a boarder and my seniors who used to smoke would send me to buy cigarettes and say I should smoke with them. Back then, I always refused, because if I had accepted, they would have taken me to the Senior Prefect and reported me that I was smoking and he would have punished me.” Balogun had a further funny tale to recount. “What’s even surprising to me again is that my friends and I who refused to smoke then in boarding school all met up later and we had all started smoking without anyone forcing us the way our seniors were doing but we were scared then so as not to become known as smokers by our teachers and the entire school.”

Such is Balogun’s addiction to smoking a particular brand that he complains if such is presented to him in the pack of another. “It affects the taste,” was his explanation. “Maybe it’s because I don’t smoke any other brand.” Even as Balogun is proud of his smoking habit, Peter, a bass guitarist, regrets his brief romance with smoking. “I used to smoke a lot. Then when I began coughing out white portions of my innards, I knew I had to stop or die. I stopped, but it wasn’t easy, though. I kept returning to it until God took control finally.”

Ayo-Martins

Like Peter, Jare Ayo-Martins, co-presenter/ producer of popular Yoruba TV magazine programme, Owuro Lawa, is also an ex-smoker. “I started smoking when I was in my teens. I began smoking due to peer group pressure.” However, after 12 years of smoking, Ayo-Martins stopped. “I stopped because it wasn’t doing me any good.” When Saturday Mirror asked him if it was perhaps affecting his health, he refuted it, and then added, “The anti-smoking sensitization campaigns also made me realize the need to stop.” He however admitted that he wasn’t a chain smoker. “I was just a normal smoker. The most I ever smoked in a day was four sticks. I never smoked a pack in a day.” Now, Ayo-Martins says of smoking: “It doesn’t do any good, so smokers should stop, but it’s difficult to stop.”

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Smoking Now Kills More Nigerian Women

by Annette Oghenerhaboke

Death from smoking-related ailments is on the increase among Nigerian women

Smoking among women is on the increase globally and this is doing a lot of harm to their cardio vascular system, lung function, reproductive system and bone density. Latest reports indicate that out of the more than one billion smokers worldwide, 250 million are women. About 5.5 percent of them die annually from smoking-related ailments. “The number of women that smoke would triple over the next generation and more than 200 million will die prematurely if nothing is done about it.” Kemi Odukoya, a doctor with the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, said during a recent seminar held in Lagos.
Odukoya, who observed that women are so important that when they die, their death affects the family, society and the nation, said the increase in the number of women smoking in the less developed countries like Nigeria is worrisome. “The current trend shows that men smoke more than women and if we don’t do anything about it, that gap will narrow and that means the female will start smoking just as much as men and in some countries, females are even already smoking more than men,” she said.
According to a recent study by the World Health Organisation, WHO, tobacco accounts for nearly one in three cancer deaths worldwide. The study also revealed that in Nigeria, there are more than 13 million active smokers out of which more than five million die annually. Of this number, approximately 1.5 million are women and unless urgent action is taken, tobacco could kill more than eight million people by 2030, out of which 2.5 million would be women.
Medical experts say smoking affect a woman’s mental, social and economic health. Other major health effects peculiar to women are menstrual problems, pelvic inflammatory disease, infertility and premature menopause. Odukoya said tobacco is a major risk factor for about 44 different kinds of diseases and that more than 4,000 toxic chemicals have been found in tobacco smoke. And because women bear the greatest burden of environmental tobacco smoke, they are at risk of particular health hazards. “Women that smoke during pregnancy are more likely to have ectopic pregnancy. Ectopic pregnancy is when a pregnancy does not form inside the womb and this can kill because the baby has been poisoned by cigarette smoke.”
Apart from the risk of fertility problems, they more are likely to have spontaneous abortion, a condition known as miscarriage. They are also at risk of delivering babies with low birth weight while their baby runs the risk of sudden infant death. Smoking also increases the risks of painful and irregular menstruation.
Unfortunately, most women are not aware of the dangers of smoking. Lanre Oginni, executive director, All Nigeria Consumers Movement Union, ANCOMMU, said while many tobacco users generally know that tobacco use is harmful, studies have revealed that most of them are unaware of the true risks.
It was in a bid to address this problem that the Environment Rights Action / Friends of the Earth Nigeria, ERA/FoEN recently held a seminar to commemorate the 2010 World No Tobacco Day, WNTD. The WNTD tagged: “Tobacco and Women, with emphasis on marketing to women,” condemned the marketing strategies employed by the tobacco industries and their tactics of luring women into smoking. Betty Abah, gender focal person, ERA/FoEN, said the theme was timely because it seeks to highlight the dangers that the world face when women, whom she described as “mothers, home makers, great dreamers and achievers,” fall deeper into the snare that turns them into puffers. “But very prominently, this year’s theme seeks to expose the ongoing subtle, sly, but aggressive marketing strategies that the tobacco industry employs to make tobacco use attractive to women, to hook them as lifelong smokers and therefore, continue in this evil, dehumanising circle,” she said.
In order to curb this problem, Akinbode Oluwafemi, programme manager, ERA/FoEN, urged Nigerians to pressurise the government to implement the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, FCTC, that regulates tobacco marketing to minors, ban smoking in public places, and ultimately reduce the harms caused to women and girls and everyone from the use of this dangerous product.

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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

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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