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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Why smoking feels good...

By Olatunji OLOLADE

Big girls don’t cry. Guess when they look like Abimbola Cole, they rise above little vanities, like tears. The 26-year old’s mien is so cool, so controlled, even in the grip of a terrible ailment.
In the dimness of the private ward, the Assistant Regional Manager of a South-east courier firm snuggled under her blanket. Fat has thinned on her bones and her favourite Dalmatian dog-spotted T-shirt is too big for her now.
Sweat beads glisten her arms and forehead and she wheezes for breath, like some child caught beneath its comfortable wooly blankets, drowning there. Her lungs probably wouldn’t take some air although she wills it to, eventually.
"Pele (Sorry) Abimbola," she whispered to herself in the third person. Her whisper, more like a gasp, pervaded the room like an interior dialogue of guilt and extenuation.
Drawn silence, sparse breathing, crushing symbolism; she simply displaces the banality of anything happening. And then she said, "I would give anything for a puff now but I dare not, do I? I started smoking at the age of 15…my first cousin; Bodunde who was 17 at the period was a chain smoker. She probably picked up the habit from one of her boyfriends. But I couldn’t care then. All I felt was a sense of freedom. I was getting to rebel in my own little way and fit into some peer culture…hmm…I sucked on Rothmans Pallmall like my life depended on it. The fact that I had a boyfriend named Rotimi imbued my habit some poetry or sort. He smoked the same brand too and between us; we consumed at least a pack and a half everyday. Even when we had little to eat, it paid us to suck on cancer sticks…yeah, that was the name we coined for it…cancer sticks."
There is much pain in her recollection. Bitter-sweet memories steal from her lips with a nostalgic peal. The effect is awesome.
"Now they said I got lung cancer (Non-small cell Stage three lung cancer) but it’s funny that I feel no regret. Whatever will be will be; a human has to die in some way," she says with the perception of someone who understands that peace might be attained by the suppression of certain feelings, like regret.
That affect is somewhat elegiac which made talking to the sick undergraduate not just exploratory but oftentimes, charming. It’s a mood that says: "This pretty young lady’s been there."
Shakiru Agarawu too has been there but he summoned the courage to get off early enough from what he recollects as "a first class journey to hell." The 44-year old proprietor of a Laundromat disclosed that he started smoking at age 12. He said: "It was a given in my neighborhood that you either smoke marijuana or cigarettes. I opted for cigarettes because I was scared of the bad stereotype given smokers of marijuana. So I started smoking cigarette. At first, I used to hide the habit from my folks but no sooner than I secured university admission, I summoned courage to light a stick in front of my siblings and then my mother. She was totally against the habit but the more she condemned it, the more I stuck to the habit. Hence her joy know no bounds when after 20 years of chain-smoking, I decided to quit."
Agarawu had his epiphany at a chance encounter with the father of a childhood friend. The latter was battled advanced stage 4 cancer until his death. "He suffered a terrible stroke that led to his death 13 days before his 81st
birthday. The man was a chain-smoker," disclosed Agarawu.

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OSUN BANS SMOKING IN INSTITUTIONS

OSUN STATE government has outlawed smoking of tobacco in all its health institutions across the 3-0 local government areas and Modakeke-Ife Area office of the state.
A statement issued by the Permanent Secretary of the Hospital Management Board, Mr. Adunade Amoo, explained that that law banning smoking in public places in the states is being enforced in the state.
He also cautioned that no tobacco or tobacco products shall be displayed for sale in and around health facilities in the state, adding that there shall be no access to tobacco products within the 500 metres radius of such facilities.

By Gbenga Faturoti, Daily Independent Correspondent, Oshogbo.

Thursday, May 20, 2010 Page 19

Pass tobacco control bill

I write to call on the Senate Committee on Health led by Senator Iyabo Obasanjo -Bello and the leadership of the National Assembly to move immediately to pass the National Tobacco Control Bill 2009, sponsored by Senator Olorunnibe Mamoora. The bill, which enjoyed the support of many senators is yet to be returned to the Senate Plenary after a public hearing was conducted in July 2009.
It is a fact that there are dangers associated with smoking. The World Health organisation estimated that 5.4 million people die every year due to a tobacco related diseases. The majority of these deaths occurred in developing countries. Tobacco is the only consumer product that is guaranteed to kill half of its consumers if used according to manufacturers‘ 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.
Recent surveys suggested that more young people are becoming smokers every- day, while a survey conducted in Lagos hospitals reveals that two persons die each day from a tobacco related disease. Governments all over the world are putting measures in place to combat the epidemic through enactment of bills like the one Mamoora has proposed.
It will be to the credit of this National Assembly to expedite action on the bill and pass it before the expiration of this democratic dispensation. Nigeria played a major part in shaping global health policies especially in tobacco control. The world is watching and waiting. The National Assembly cannot afford to fail Nigerians.

Seun Akioye
1, Balogun Street, Off Awolowo Way, Ikeja, Lagos.

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ERA pushes for passage of National Tobacco Bill

By Collins Nweze

The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has decried the delay by the National Assembly in the passage into law of the National Tobacco Control Bill. The agency said further delay in the passage of the bill may cost the nation more tobacco-related deaths.
The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which has been signed and ratified by over 168 countries including Nigeria came into force in 2005 and is the first treaty negotiated under the auspices of the World Health Organisation (WHO) to take global action against tobacco-related deaths. The WHO says tobacco-related deaths stand at 5.4 million people annually, and projects this will increase beyond eight million over the next two decades, with the majority of lives lost in developing countries. It, therefore, insists that strong worldwide enforcement and implementation of the FCTC could save 200 million lives by the year 2050.
Nigeria, which signed the FCTC in 2004 and ratified in 2005, has been recording more deaths relating to tobacco, especially cancer. "The fifth year of FCTC entering into force calls for sober reflection for us as a nation because in the last five years little progress has been made in domesticating the FCTC.
This has not been without a grave impact on the citizenry because within this period we have lost talented musicians, journalists and even doctors, no thanks to nearly no regulation of an industry that markets a lethal product in beautiful wraps," said ERA/FoEN Programme Manager, Akinbode Oluwafemi.
Oluwafemi pointed out that "Nigerians are unhappy with the slow response of government to public health protection especially with the way the tobacco control bill has been neglected after the public hearing held in July 2009. We are further dismayed that there is an alleged clandestine moves by tobacco lobbyists to compromise our law makers with the intent of thwarting the passage of the national tobacco control bill."
"How else can you explain our law makers’ foot-dragging on the bill nearly one year after the public hearing? This action is anti-people and seriously compromises our democracy. Our lawmakers should stand by the people who have spoken in unison at the public hearing and abide by the principles of the FCTC which has reduced tobacco-related deaths in countries that have implemented the provisions"
The Director-General of the WHO, Dr. Margaret Chan, said recent studies estimates that full implementation of just four cost-effective measures set out in the FCTC could prevent 5.5 million deaths within a decade.

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Blame Poor Taxation For Increase In Smoking – Expert

by Catherine Agbo

The ever growing rate of active smokers in the country has been linked to the inability of the federal government to impose heavy taxes on tobacco products, which have consequently made the price of the products easily affordable for all.

This was the position of an expert on Tobacco Control, Akinbode Oluwafemi who was speaking at a one-day workshop organised for journalists on the role of the media in the campaign against smoking of cigarette in public places in FCT held in Abuja.

Akinbode posited that if heavy taxation could be imposed on tobacco by the federal government, the cost of production will increase and this will invariably lead to the increase in the price of the products thereby discouraging youths from smoking.

He said, "A pack of cigarette that sells for N200 in Nigeria goes for about $5 in the United States of America due to the heavy taxation placed on the manufacturing companies and I can assure you that smoking is a sure gateway to drug addiction.

Akinbode who described smoking as a major risk factor for different cancers and other tobacco related ailments said it was also linked to about fifteen various cases of cancer in the human body saying "apart from the high cost of treatment, infrastructural challenges, smoking related cancers accounts for 30 per cent of cancer related deaths" . The expert who is the Programme Manager, Environmental Rights Action/friends of the Earth Nigeria disclosed that studies had revealed that cigarette contains about 4,000 toxic and cancer causing chemicals and is responsible for more than 85 per cent cases of lung cancer. This, he added, can also lead to cancer of the mouth, pharynx, larynx, oesophagus, stomach, pancreas, uterine, cervix, kidney, ureter, bladder and the colon.

While urging the National Assembly to hasten the process of passage of bill on the ban on tobacco smoking in the country, he urged Nigerians to support the passage of the National Tobacco control bill as it was in the interest of all especially second hand smokers who are more at risk of infection arising from inhaling tobacco smoke.

The Secretary of Social Development of the FCDA, Habiba Kalgo while declaring the workshop open said the decision to ban smoking in public places in the FCT was necessitated by the increase in the number of deaths arising from cancer cases in the FCT.

She, however, urged FCT residents to support the ban since they were the second hand smokers who are also affected by the fumes of the products.

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Group wants ban on sale of cigarettes near schools

By Ayodeji Moradeyo

The federal government should ban the sale of cigarettes near institutions of learning in the country, a non- governmental group, Campaign for Tobacco Free Youths, has said.
“It is highly wrong for cigarettes to be sold near school environment; government must do everything to ensure that our students are not exposed to seeing cigarettes being sold like biscuits,” the coordinator of the group, Gbenga Adejuwon, said.
Mr. Adejuwon, who spoke at a workshop organised in Akure, on Wednesday, also appealed to the governors of the 36 states of the federation to implement the article 8 of the Frame Work Convention on Tobacco Control of the World Health Organisation.
“The article, according to him, will also restrict the exposure to tobacco smoke to prevent hazards from second hand smoke,” he said.
Mr. Adejuwon also urged all states to set up tobacco control committees which will comprise government officials and tobacco control organizations.
The committee, he said, would be empowered by law to prosecute people who smoke cigarettes in public places.
The anti-tobacco activists present at the event also raised alarm over what they said was the attitude of tobacco companies to slow down the hearing of public health cases filed against them in courts by various anti tobacco groups.
“Most of these companies, through their counsels, asked for unnecessary adjournments to deliberately slow down the pace of judgement and frustrate the trials,” Mr. Adejuwon said.
The workshop was organized to inform students about the harmful effects of cigarette.

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Time to nail breast cancer

By Olukorede Yishau

Betty Anyanwu-Akeredolu woke up one day and had no cause to feel anything was wrong with her. She felt great and naturally had no reason to believe anything was amiss with her health. Then, she decided to have her bath. And her world came crashing like a ceiling that caved into a severe storm. It was in 1997. As she was having her bath, her fingers touched something on her. A lump? She told herself it could not be. It was a denial she did not even believe herself. Her emotions ran riot and fear took over her entire being.
For one week, she kept it to herself. She could not share the fear that she had breast cancer with anyone. Not even her husband or family doctor. She was under terrific emotional trauma. Not even her husband’s belief that she was withdrawn could draw her out.
But an angel soon came. The angel came via the a cable show. According to her, "I tuned to cable TV and chose UK living and there was Rolanda’s show tilted "this programme can save your life." It surely did, for it was about breast cancer survivors. That programme gave me what I needed most at that point in time hope that I could be a survivor too. It was the greatest spiritual upliftment I have ever had in my entire life."
She said: "By the following week, I summoned courage and went to an Alumna (University of Nigeria), Dr. Ubah at University College Hospital, Ibadan for palpation. She at last confirmed the presence of a lump. Cold reality. Numb shock. What kind of lump? Benign or malignant? It was rather too early to conclude as biopsy was yet to be carried out. However, it is pertinent to mention that by the time of confirmation of the malignancy, I had gathered myself, shut out emotions and was ready for whatever it would take to make me free of the affliction. My emotional preparedness, I want to believe, helped a lot in dealing with the problem. Without delay, on April 29, 1997, I had surgery at the University College Hospital, Ibadan successfully performed by a most caring team of doctors led by Dr. O.O. Akute (FRCS- Fellow Royal College of Surgeons). The best part of the good news was that my cancer was at stage 1 with the axillary nodes free of cancer cells."
Thanks to Rolanda’s Show, Anyanwu-Akeredolu came out of her quietude. But there are thousands of women and men currently groaning in silence over breast cancer and other forms of cancer in different parts of Nigeria.
Many are confused and find themselves pacing up and down, with beads of perspiration forming beneath their collars. Anyanwu-Akeredolu, who after surviving her ordeal founded Breast Cancer Association of Nigeria (BRECAN), said it is not unusual for people to groan in silence.
"While in the hospital, I noted the generally high level of fear, apprehension and secrecy among breast cancer patients. Nobody wanted to talk about it. Majority of the patients, due to ignorance and poverty were at the late stages of the disease when little help could be given. The lucky ones who had successful treatment shied away from discussing their experience. They simply got treated and walked away with sealed lips. Some that I managed to engage in discussions disclosed that their husbands would never let them go public about their experience with breast cancer, apparently fearing stigmatisation," she said.
It is in order to stop the silence associated with breast cancer that the month of October has been set aside worldwide to create awareness about the disease. In Nigeria, where the pandemic is on the increase, non-governmental organisations working in the area of cancer have used the month to hold events aimed at improving the awareness about breast cancer, the need for government to provide test centers and treatment facilities. Some have also used it to promote the need for legislations, which promote healthy living.
Interestingly, the need to pass the National Tobacco Control Bill, which is before the Senate has also found a space this month. The Senate Committee on Health led by Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello has held a public hearing on it, after it passed the second reading. The passage of this bill automatically means a domestication of the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), a global treaty which Nigeria has ratified and is obligated to domesticate. The FCTC prescribes measures that discourage smoking and promote healthy living.
Though the causes of breast cancer have not been conclusively found, tobacco use is associated with many forms of cancer and causes 90 percent of lung cancer. Tobacco smoke contains over fifty known carcinogens, including nitrosamines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Tobacco is responsible for about one in three of all cancer deaths in the developed world, and about one in five worldwide.
This is why the Programme Manager of Environmental Rights Action (ERA), Akinbode Oluwafemi, said it was time the Senate passed the National Tobacco Control Bill.
Akinbode told a press conference that "nobody at the public hearing, including tobacco industry lobbyists contended the lethal consequences of smoking."
He said: "Tobacco currently kills over 5.4 million people annually, over 70 per cent of those deaths occur in developing countries. Also, nobody at the public hearing (again including the tobacco companies) objected to the passage of the bill. The tobacco companies only raised a few inconsequential and unsubstantiated objections to a few provisions. Those objections were roundly defended through our presentations.
"In addition, the Public Hearing was the biggest opportunity to unpack some of the lies being peddled in the media about possible negative consequences of the bill. The bill as appropriately titled is to control tobacco consumption so as to reduce the deaths, ill-health, social, economic and environmental costs associated with tobacco use. The bill has no provision about outlawing or forcefully closing down tobacco factories as being circulated in a section of the media. At the public hearing, the tobacco industry and their agents finally put paid to their widely peddled fairy tale of massive job losses if the nation implement effectives tobacco control laws."
He further explained that "In fact, the British American Tobacco Company Nigeria, the company which controls over 82 per cent of the Nigerian cigarette market, in its presentation at the public hearing, allayed all fears of massive job losses when it disclosed in the presence of distinguished Senators that it has 850 staff. To further debunk the massive job loss propaganda, the Association of Tobacco Wholesalers and Association of Tobacco Retailers put their combined staff strength at about 4,000. Thanks to the public hearing and the Senate Committee on Health, Nigerians now know for a fact that the 300,000 or 500,000 job propaganda is huge lie."
He said the only way forward is that "Senator Obasanjo-Bello and members of the committee should fire at full speed to present the Bill before the Senate plenary. We urge the Senate to complement the success recorded by the Health Committee and the example shown by the Osun State House of Assembly by fast tracking the National Tobacco Control Bill. Nigerians are dying by the seconds due to tobacco addiction while tobacco manufacturers smile to the banks. Every delay is more deaths, more ill-health. Nigerians and indeed the entire world are watching. We are waiting."
While the waiting game continues, experts have pointed out that though women may be more affected, but breast cancer is not exclusive to women. In fact, experts say it kills men faster because they are flat-chested. Statistics from the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR) shows that men account for 20 percent of cancer cases in the country. This means one in every hundred men, as against two in every hundred women, are affected by breast cancer.
The statistics are generally glooming. Of all cancer cases that have been recorded in Nigeria, breast cancer is the leading killer, with over 30,000 cases recorded annually. Globally, not less than 400,000 women are lost to breast cancer annually.
No wonder the Executive Director of International Union Against Cancer, Isabel Mortara, said "each year, the number of women diagnosed with breast cancer and dying from it rises and the gap in survival rates between developed and developing countries widens."
It is for this reason that Anyanwu-Akeredolu said: "Cancer in general is a word that strikes fear into the heart of everyone. It is a sure killer if allowed to take control."
Another breast cancer survivor and promoter of Bloom Cancer Care and Support Centre, Dr. Kofoworola Orija, said "our personal experience of breast cancer is indeed a social issue. Every woman battles through her disease so as to bounce back in life striving to be part once more of an inclusive society."
For breast cancer patient, there are stages of cancer, which basically indicate how far cancer cells have spread within the breast to nearby tissue and other organs. Carcinoma in situ refers to the condition when cancer is static in the ducts and has not spread to other organs of the body. It has two types known as Lobular Carcinoma in Situ and Ductal Carcinoma.
Stage 0 is that stage when the cancer cells are still within the duct. By the time it gets to stages 1 and 2, the cancer has invaded nearby tissue. At stage one, the cancer is two centimetres and once it has gone beyond two centimetres, it has entered the second stage and might have spread to the lymph nodes under the armpit. At these two stages, it is not yet critical.
The critical stages begin from stage three when the cancer has grown beyond five centimetres and have spread to the lymph nodes. It is also possible that it would have spread to the chest wall, inside the chest and the skin.
As for stage four, the cancer has invaded the lungs and the bones, aside spreading to the lymph nodes. Both stages three and four are critical.
As a way of catching the lump early and killing it, the American Cancer Society (ACS) recommends annual mammogram from age 40. Mammogram is a test carried out to detect lump. ACS also recommended clinical breast examination every three years for women in their 20s and 30s and older. Also, it advises women to know how their breasts normally feel and report any change to healthcare providers. "Women at risk should talk with their doctors regularly about the benefits and limitations of starting mammography earlier, having additional tests or having more frequent exams," the ACS recommends.
It also prescribes breast self-examination (BSE) for women starting from their 20s.
BSE, says Ebunola Anozie, who is the co-ordinator of Care Organisation Public Enlightenment, is the primary weapon through which cancer can be detected early.
What are you waiting for?

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News Alert: Osun State

Osun State government has successfully passed the law prohibiting smoking in public places within the state.

The Journey...

More detail to come...

SMOKING HAZARDS

SMOKERS SHOULD REALIZE THAT IN ADDITION TO CAUSING THEMSELVES HARM. OTHERS MAY SUFFER AS A RESULT.

Smoking accounts for about one in five Cancer deaths

Tobacco smoke causes 90 percent of all Lung Cancers. Thanks to falling smoking rates in most countries of the world. Fewer men than ever are dying of lung cancer. But lung cancer is still the leading cancer killer in men. Smoking accounts for about one in five deaths from cardiovascular disease andthe risk increases with the number of cigarettes smoked each day.

Cigarette smoke in carpet could affect babies

WE'RE all aware of the dangers of second-hand smoke; only recently, a leading doctor said smoking should be banned in cars carrying children.
But could there be even greater worry? Could you suffer the effects of passive smoking from simply travelling in a smoker's car -even if they haven't lit up?

Is that nasty ash-tray tang that lingers on car-seat fabric, curtains in homes and the clothes of the nicotine addict strong enough to damage other people's health?

These questions were posed in an article by The Mail of London in a recent article on a research on the effect of cigarette smoke on children.

The Mail reported that according to some experts, thirdhand smoke, as it is known, is as dangerous to health as the fumes billowing directly from a pipe or cigarette, particularly for babies and children.

A recent report in the United States of America has warned that even if you don't smoke in front of your family, you might be putting them at risk of cancer or delaying the development of their brain, thanks to polluting their environment with a lingering chemical cloud.

The warning came from a paper produced in the respected journal, Paediatrics, earlier this year.

The study surveyed more than 1,500 households, learning that just 26.7 per cent of those that included a smoker had strict rules about not smoking in the home.

"The dangers of third-hand smoke are very real," explained the leader of the study, Professor Jonathan Winickoff, of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, United States of America.

"Toxic particles in cigarette smoke can remain on nearby surfaces long after the cigarette has been put out, meaning the sofa is potentially as problematic as the ashtray itself," Winickoff said.

Small children and babies are particularly susceptible because they crawl on the carpet and are likely to breathe in close proximity to smokers or even lick and suck clothing or items that smokers have touched.

Winickoff is also concerned about new mothers who smoke, saying, "When you're near your baby, even if you are not smoking, the child comes into contact with those toxins.

"And if you breastfeed, the toxins will transfer to your baby in the breast milk."

According to the National Toxicology Programme in the United States of America, tobacco smoke contains about 4,000 chemicals, including 250 poisonous gases and metals.

Such poisonous gases and metals in tobacco include butane (used in lighter fuel), arsenic, carbon monoxide, benzene, toluene (found in paint thinners), ammonia, chromium (used to make steel), cadmium (used to make batteries), lead and hydrogen cyanide (which is used in chemical weapons).

The smoke even contains polonium-210 - the highly radioactive carcinogen used to murder Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, in London in 2006.

Experts fear that these particles are carcinogenic and that some of the toxins may affect brain development in young children, who may be more affected than adults as their bodies and brains are still growing.

And these concerns are not confined to the Americans.

"Parents who smoke should be aware that when they cuddle or hold a child on their lap, they are exposing them to the smoke on their clothes," says Professor Ros Smyth, Head, Division of Child Health, University of Liverpool.

Smyth added, "They should be particularly aware if they have a child with a respiratory problem such as asthma."

It is a question of risk, says Professor Andrew Shennan of baby charity, Tommy's.

Shennan said, "You wouldn't go into a room full of asbestos, so would you go into a room full of other toxins?"

Earlier this year, two students in San Antonio, Texas, United States of America, won an award at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for an experiment on fruit fly larvae that had been exposed to foam saturated with tobacco smoke.

The pair observed a high number of mutations, which could influence scientific knowledge of the effect of environmental - or third-hand -smoke on humans.

Meanwhile, a San Diego study in 2004 discovered that in households where there was a smoker, although all smoking was done outside, children still had nicotine in strands of their hair and in their urine.

Mothers who smoked away from their children were found to have nearly as much nicotine on their hands as smokers who made no special effort.

This new research on third-hand smoke builds on previous studies into second-hand smoking, or passive smoking - inhaling someone else's cigarette smoke.

The original passive smoking studies began in the Seventies and although the initial findings linking passive smoking to disease were contested by the industry, it is now accepted that there is a clear link.

In 2004, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared that scientific evidence unequivocally established that exposure to tobacco from passive smoking causes death, disease and disability.

It also found that the risk for lung cancer when a spouse smoked was 20 per cent for a woman and 30 per cent for a man. It is estimated heavy exposure to cigarette smoke at work pushes this to 50 per cent.

The danger with passive smoking is so-called 'side stream' smoke - this is full of the same toxins as the 'mainstream smoke' inhaled directly by the smoker from the filter end of the cigarette, but comes from the burning tip of the cigarette.

Indeed, fresh side-stream smoke is actually four times more toxic than mainstream smoke, according to research from the Centre for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, United States of America.

The report concluded, "Smokefree public places and workplaces are the only practical way to protect the public health from the toxins in side-stream smoke."

Further studies have shown that children who passively smoke as a result of living in households where there is a smoker are more likely to suffer from respiratory disease, asthma attacks, middle ear infections and cot death.

The increasing weight of the evidence about the dangers of passive smoking led many countries to consider smoking bans in enclosed public places, with Norway the first to go smoke-

free in 2004, Italy in 2005 and the United Kingdom in 2007. Doctors and health workers have already noted a corresponding fall in the number of hospital admissions for heart-related conditions.

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Cigarettes: Ban production not smoking

-Ahmed Raji

MOST people detest smoking. Even the "Turkish" smoker knows that it is not a healthy habit. That smoking poses a grave health hazard to both the actual and passive smokers is beyond argument. And what is more, nobody has been able to identify any benefit derivable from smoking.
Even medically, some say a daily glass of beer is good for the system. They say it clears the bowel. Nothing good is attributable to smoking. I challenge anyone to come up with any benefit derivable from smoking. The entire world over, it is being recommended that all cigarette packets should carry the warning: "Smoking is dangerous to health". Of late, other measures are being rolled out to discourage smoking. Some accounts have it that the death of over 20 million people yearly is traceable to smoking. In Turkey, which is the home of smoking, smoking is about to be banned in almost every public area.
In most parts of the Western world, smoking is not allowed in "public places". Anti-smoking law is about to be rolled out in Abuja and some other parts of Nigeria. But do all these measures constitute any enough deterrence to smoking considering the gravity of damage it does to humanity? I think not. All these prohibitions have not affected the cigarette market in any major way. People still smoke their lives away. It needs not be repeated, the nexus between cigarette smoking and hard drugs like cocaine, cannabis, heroine etc.
A once and for all pragmatic solution will be to outlaw the production of the product in all forms. And that will amount to tackling the problem from root rather than attending to the effect. A grace period of not more than 12 months should be given to all producers of cigarettes to wind down while a comprehensive diversification scheme should be put in place to switch them over to other lines of business. Our pharmacologists and social scientists should be tasked on how to carry out the required therapy on chronic smokers and addicts. It will not be a misstatement to contend that the proposed diversification exercise programme will not cost the world up to five per cent of what the Iraqi war consumed.
Banning the smoking of cigarette while production of cigarette is allowed looks like "a collective mockery of our collective intelligence". The world should rise up to the challenge. Banning the production may also assist in the war against global warming. Nigeria can show example by outlawing all forms of cigarette making in Nigeria and also banning importation and smoking of same. Even the World Trade Organisation (W.T.O.) won't dare complain if we close our borders to cigarette.
And I take this opportunity to appeal to our "smoking leaders" to see this as a sacrifice for the greater good of all. It is a fact that smoking is not an easy habit to quit. But with determination, it is achievable just as this writer took his last stick in 2006.
Notwithstanding doubts as to the sustainability of some of the recent law suits in Nigeria against the major cigarette producers, we must commend the ingenuity of both the plaintiffs and their counsel. Their efforts have further confirmed the menace which production of cigarettes constitutes to our healthy living. Even non-smokers face the danger of passive smoking.
Distinguished senators and very honourable members of the house, the health of the nation is in your hands. If only you can pass a bill banning production of cigarette and allied products Nigerians and the world will forever remember you. You should resist the professional lobbyists with deep pockets who may not be bothered by the death of fellow human beings. Save life please. Initiate the bill today and pass it with the same dispatch with which the Senate passed the 2009 appropriation bill.
Smoking can be a terrible addiction. There is this good but nasty friend of mine who promised his wife that when their first child was "delivered" he would quit smoking. When reminded of his solemn promise after the arrival of the first child, my friend told the wife that he did not "deliver" a baby as a man cannot so do hence he has continued to smoke his Benson & Hedges in spite of all appeals. Despite his blood pressure problem, my friend is yet to quit up till this moment. And his health suffers! Production of cigarette must be outlawed to save the life of millions in my friend's shoes.

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Group chides Alao-Akala over BATN

A Non Governmental Organisation, Journalists Action on Tobacco and Health (JATH) yesterday chided Oyo State Governor, Adebayo Alao-Akala over his statement that his administration would resist the closure of British American Tobacco Nigeria (BATN).
The Oyo State governor had said that the tobacco company was contributing to the economy of his state and that he would frustrate moves to close down the company.
JATH, in a statement signed by its Programme Manager, Mr. Yinka Olugbade, said that Alao-Akala’s statement shows that he was not well-informed by his advisers.
According to the group, "what the governor is interpreting as moves to close down BAT is the National Tobacco Control bill sponsored by Senator Olorunimbe Mamora, which has passed the second reading at the National Assembly, which has nothing to do with the closure of BATN."
The group said that Governor Alao-Akala ought to have found out the real intent of the bill before attempting to shoot it down.
"This bill is all about properly regulating the activities of tobacco companies operating in Nigeria and not only BATN. The bill seeks to prohibit sale of cigarette to underage. It seeks to make it an offence to sell cigarettes in pieces. It seeks to make tobacco companies put graphic warnings telling people of harmful effects of tobacco smoking in order for them to make informed decision about whether to smoke or not. It also seeks to ensure that tobacco products are not readily available because of its cheap prices," said JATH.
The group described as unfortunate that Alao-Akala has allowed himself to be used by BATN as part of its propaganda to escape regulation.
The group faults Alao-Akala’s claim that BATN has contributed to job creation all over the country, arguing that more people have lost their lives as a result of smoking of cigarette.
The group said "BATN has only employed about 1,000. Countless others have died directly or indirectly through cigarette consumption. So, Governor Alao-Akala should find ought his facts before commenting. That he made the comment after embarking on a facility tour of BATN also shows that he was out on a mischief mission. He should go and get a copy of the bill and read before making comments."

http://thenationonlineng.net/web/articles/4695/1/Group-chides-Alao-Akala-/Page1.html

NIGERIA VERSUS BIG TOBACCO

On February 4, 2009, the National Tobacco Control Bill 2009 scaled through Second Reading at the Senate. The Bill sponsored by Senator Olorunnibe Mamora seeks to regulate the manufacturing, sale and distribution of tobacco products in the country. Essentially, the bill domesticates the provisions of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco (FCTC) which Nigeria signed on June 28, 2004 and ratified on October 20, 2005.

Senate President David Mark, apparently encouraged by the overwhelming support fellow senators accorded the bill during the Second Plenary Reading and in accordance with legislative practice, referred the bill to the Senate Committee on Health for fine-tuning before its passage. The Senate President and indeed several other distinguished senators who took the floor during the Second Reading spoke in favour of the quick passage of the bill. They enumerated the positive impacts the bill promised for public health and its potential for saving the lives of millions of Nigerian youths from tobacco addiction.

Specifically, the Senate President closed the plenary with an admonition to his fellow senators to shun every overture by Big Tobacco to undermine or delay the passage of the bill. He predicted that the tobacco industry will certainly do all within its powers to distract the Senate from working for speedy passage of the public health bill but that the Senate should stand firm for public health and the well-being of Nigerian.

True to the Senate President's prediction, since February the tobacco industry since February has deployed strategies to undermine the bill. The industry has engaged media spin doctors to feed Nigerians with a pot pouri of lies and propaganda. They have recruited surrogates and hatchet men to distort scientifically documented data on the impact of tobacco use on public health, the economy and the environment.

Page 60, THISDAY, Vol. 14, No. 5112Tuesday, April 21, 2009

National Tobacco Control Bill - MAN vs. Tobacco Lobbyists

MAN warns over Anti-Tobacco Bill -says action will affect country’s GDP

The rank of those calling for caution by the Senate in the treatment of the anti-tobacco bill, has been swelled by the apex manufacturing body, the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN).

...MAN BOSS

In making his call, the Chairman of MAN, South-West Zone (comprising Oyo, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti, Kwara and Kogi states), the tobacco-producing area of the country, Chief Isaac Adaegbo Akinpide, said that the tobacco bill currently at the Senate is geared towards killing tobacco production in the country.

Speaking with reporters he said: “MAN recognises the need to regulate the tobacco industry, but in doing this, government should be careful that it does not kill the legal industry. If the legal industry disappears, people will still smoke in this country so there will be a demand for tobacco products and the vacuum will be filled by smugglers.”

The MAN chairman also highlighted the economic import of the move, if it materialises in the Senate. He asserted, “over the past few years, approximately 50 per cent of the workforce in the nation’s manufacturing sector have been thrown out of jobs and in 2008, the manufacturing sub-sector’s contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was a paltry 4.13 per cent down from 10 per cent which it stood at in the preceding years.”

He urged the Federal Governments to be more careful with its policies so as to protect local industries. “The tyre industry suffered the same fate with Michelin in Port Harcourt and Dunlop in Ikeja closing their factories. These developments can be attributable to dysfunctional government policies which do not take into consideration, the impact they will have on the economy,” he explained.

A couple of weeks ago, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Industries, Senator Kamorudeen Adedibu (PDP, Oyo South) in condemning the bill, stated that it is a ‘misplaced priority.’ Many other Nigerians have in different fora, advised that the Senate apply caution, even as it is a general consensus that the tobacco industry needs to be regulated. SOURCE

Tobacco Lobbyists and the National Tobacco Control Bill

-By Jakpor, a public health advocate, Lagos

It is becoming evident by the day that beneficiaries of the tobacco industry will stop at nothing to keep the tobacco business going even if it means distorting hard facts that have far-reaching implication on our well-being as a people.

Articles that have popped up in the media since news broke that the National Tobacco Control Bill 2009 received overwhelming support from members of the Senate did not only confirm this assertion but also deepened my conviction that indeed the bill is coming at a very auspicious time.

It is coming at a time that independent findings by well-meaning and concerned organisations, including a recent one by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) confirmed that like no other time in history, tobacco companies are aggressively marketing cigarettes to children across Africa and conscripting them into smoking through parties and deceptive concepts.

Here in Nigeria, the successful campaigns to bring down tobacco billboards and halt advertisement on set notwithstanding, tobacco firms have always conned their way around the law. British America Tobacco (BAT) –the market leader here, has been successfully replaced TV, newspaper and radio adverts with indirect adverts –branding of T-shirts, kiosks and vehicles in its colors and logo. The company also recently owned up to organizing secret smoking parties with an unstated mission: To recruit the swarm of underage that are deluded into believing that smoking is “hype” and “classy”.

It was on this foundation that the National Tobacco Control Bill, sponsored by Senate Deputy Minority Leader, Olorunnimbe Mamora, makes it an offence to sell or market tobacco products to persons under the age of 18 and imposes a fine not exceeding N50,000 or imprisonment of a term not exceeding six months or both on violators. It also prohibits all advertisements, sponsorships, testimonials and promotion of cigarettes in the country.

In the week since the Senate threw its weight behind the bill, I have glossed over the water-less arguments of the tobacco foot soldiers trying to hack away at provisions in the bill until I stumbled on an amazing report that prompted me to put pen to paper.

In the widely published report, Chairman, South-West Zone of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, Chief Isaac Adaegbo Akinpide was quoted: “MAN recognizes the need to regulate the tobacco industry, but in doing this, government should be careful that it does not kill the legal industry. If the legal industry disappears, people will still smoke in this country so there will be a demand for tobacco products and the vacuum will be filled by smugglers.”

While I may not want to believe that the view of the MAN chief represents all MAN member groups (even in his South West), this shocking statement at a time Nigerians are counting the cost of the health impacts of tobacco is very disappointing.

For one, his argument on economic and job losses that will worsen the approximately retrenched 50 per cent of workforce in the nation’s manufacturing sector since 2008 does not have any bearing with the issues at stake: increasing number of deaths due to tobacco and the need to rein in on this development through stiff laws like obtains in other parts of the world.

Time and again, MAN as a body has blamed the parlous state of the manufacturing sector on inconsistency in government policies and divided interest. What inconsistency is more than a government that on one hand promises to uphold the health of its citizens and on the other hand, welcomes a merchant of death? That is what the open arms that the Obasanjo administration gave to BAT in 2001 when it applauded a $150 million cigarette manufacturing plant in Ibadan represents. Since that time, more youths have taken to smoking and the rest of course is history.

The issue of smuggling is an insignificant one which Nigerians know too well: Cigarette smuggling can be laid on the doorsteps of the tobacco industry whose internal documents confirm is actually behind the booming smuggling business.

But then, an issue that is even more surprising that tobacco lobbyists avoid like a plague is that recommendations in the bill is not actually a novel innovation by our Senators. The World Health Orgnisation (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which Nigeria signed on June 28, 2004 and ratified on October 20, 2005 recognizes the need for parties to the protocol to enact laws that will clip the wings of the tobacco firms.

WHO initiated the FCTC in 1999 in response to the global tobacco epidemic and it was subsequently endorsed unanimously by WHO member states on 21 May, 2003 to become a legally-binding international public health treaty. The WHO FCTC requires nations to implement a range of tobacco control policies including banning smoking in public places, raising taxes on tobacco products, banning tobacco advertising, and labeling cigarette packets with health warnings.

The Conference of Parties to the FCTC which met in Durban, South Africa last year with a strong delegation from the Nigerian government also strengthened Article 5.3 of the protocol which protects the treaty and related public health policies from tobacco industry interference and even prohibits government partnership or collaboration with the tobacco industry. Ever since, the slogan of the tobacco industry has been “revenue will be lost by governments”
Fortunately this argument did not sell in neighboring Ghana where, even before the COP3, because of the same antics they have been accused of in Nigeria, the Ghanian government delisted BAT from the Ghanian Stock Exchange and threw it out of that country.

The same deceptive arguments also did not hold in the United Kingdom and other countries of Europe that sent them packing after decades of operation.

It is safe to remind the few Nigerian beneficiaries buying up newspaper space to encourage the production and sale of a confirmed killer product that the same companies they front for admitted their crimes in the United States of America where they pay $206 billion to the coffers of 46 states annually in fines for their past, present and future death-inducing actions. This started in 1998 under what has come to be known as Master Settlement Agreement, and will continue for another 14 years.

Going by statistics from the WHO which puts tobacco-induced deaths at over 5.4 million annually (more than 75 per cent happening in developing nations), it becomes quite clear that proponents of a so-called foreign direct investment in form of tobacco products do not understand what pro-people investment really is.

One of the greatest producers and exporter of tobacco leaves is Malawi, a nation that is competing for permanent status in the list of poor nations in the World Poverty Index, Clearly, tobacco has not brought Malawi wealth and will not bring us wealth either.

If the production and marketing of tobacco products is actually the definition of what a foreign direct investment is, the Lagos State government for instance, will not be expending N216,000 annually on the 9,527 tobacco-related cases in 11 out of 26 public hospitals as revealed in a 2006 survey.

If it is actually an investment worth celebrating, tobacco growing communities in Iseyin and Ago Are in the same Oyo State which houses the $150 million so-called investment will not remain as backward and rustic as it was maybe in the time of the Late Bishop Ajayi Crowther of blessed memory.

Since 2001 when BAT commissioned a $150 million plant in Ibadan, Oyo State and upgraded its Zaria factory to produce 7,200 sticks per minute, the smoking rate among youths also assumed a frightening dimension.

In 1994, seven years before the commissioning of the Ibadan Plant, the smoking rate among youths was four per cent. The publicity blitz and deceptive marketing that followed the commissioning pushed the figures to 18.1 per cent among the age groups 13-15 years by the end of 2002.

Unfortunately, like most cancer patients dying gradually in the hospitals today, the unsuspecting youth will come to know years from now when they develop terminal ailments, that their future had been mortgaged by the organizers of the smoking parties.

We can easily dismember tobacco lobbyists’ position on the need to save the tobacco companies litigation and subsequent closing of shop in other to save the contentious 300,000 dependants of the alleged 2,500 tobacco industry staff that will be thrown into the unemployment market if the companies eventually does pack up.

One even wonders how those figures where manufactured when BATN recently revealed that less than a thousand Nigerians are in its direct employ because of the fully automated nature of the Ibadan plant. The thousands of tobacco farmers that may have been conscripted into the list of threatened workforce as Nigerians have come to know, are poor farmers who are only victims of a monopolistic company that has condemned them to irredeemable poverty.

Today, BAT is sole buyer of the farmers’ leaves, dictates ridiculous prices and supplies them fertilizers like a child tied to the umbilical cord of a mother. But unlike the later, this union is a torturously life-long.

Be that as it may, the fictitious 302,500 people can still not equate the many more thousands that die annually from cancer and other tobacco-related illnesses and many more that will die.
It will make more sense for tobacco lobbyists concentrate on getting their benefactor to diversify into other areas of agriculture that its foundation claims success in improving instead of the waste of newspaper space.

The National Tobacco Control Bill is an idea whose time has come and the Senate’s decision to fast-track the process of translating it into law is a fresh breath away from the stagnation and deliberate hurdles thrown the way of the multi-billion naira suits by the tobacco giants.

The patriotism of the honorable members of the House in standing for the rights of Nigerians to a poison-free air is commendable. Mamora and his team will have their names written in gold in the annals of this nation.


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Group urges Senate to pass anti-tobacco bill

A Non-Governmental Organisation, Journalists Action on Tobacco and Health (JATH) has urged the Senate to speed up the passage of the 2009 National Tobacco Control Bill to allow for commencement of quick implementation of the WHO’s Framework convention on Tobacco Control(FCTC) which Nigeria ratified in 2005.

In a statement signed by the group’s Programme Manager, Mr. Yinka Olugbade, the group said the passage of the bill would help reduce tobacco-related deaths.

The group also commended Senator Olorunimbe Mamora for sponsoring the bill and working to ensure that it has passed the second reading.

“The Senate will be doing this nation a lot of good by passing this bill on time because the burden of cancer in Nigeria is appreciable and tobacco contributes a lot to this. According to the World Health Organisation, there are an estimated 100,000 new cancer cases in the country each year although observers believe the figure could become as high as 500,000 new cases annually by 2010.

“It is feared that by 2020, cancer incidence for Nigerian males and females may rise to 90.7/100,000 and 100.9/100,000 respectively. It is also anticipated that by 2020, death rates from cancer in Nigerian males and females may reach 72.7/100,000 and 76/100,000 respectively. But this only represents a tip of the iceberg if projections by the World Health Organization (WHO) are anything to go by.

“ In 2005 cancer killed eighty nine thousand people in Nigeria with fifty four thousand of this figure below the age of seventy. Essentially, the most common cancers documented in Nigeria to date are cancers of the uterus and breast for women and liver and prostate cancers for men. But many of these deaths can be avoided. Over 40% of all cancers can be prevented. Others can be detected early, treated and cured.

“With the passage of this bill, which will properly regulate tobacco use, cancer and other tobacco-related diseases are bound to be on the rebound,” the group noted.

Noting that a part of the bill contains incorporation of Pictorial warnings on the pack of cigarettes,JATH said,"There is no doubt that the sponsor of the Bill and the Nigerian Senate meant well for the welfare of its citizens.

"Incorporation of Pictorial Warning on tobacco product packets is important as majority of the tobacco users in this country will be able to have informed choice. World Health Organization (WHO), particularly approves of tobacco health warnings that contain both pictures and words because they are the most effective at convincing people to quit.

ERA Commends Senate over anti-tobacco Bill

Senate Debates Bill On Tobacco Control, Sale

by Hanson Okoh
February 13, 2009


Senators on Wednesday considered legislation which seeks to control the manufacture, sale, advertising, promotion and sponsorship of tobacco or tobacco products in Nigeria.
The bill on the subject has passed through Second Reading.
It was entitled, "National Tobacco Control Bill, 2009".
Deputy Minority Leader, Olorunnimbe Adeleke Mamora (AC, Lagos East), is the sponsor of the bill.
If passed into law, it would become an offence to sell or market tobacco products to persons under 18 years with a fine of N50,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or both for whoever flouts the law.
The bill also proposes to prohibit the sale of cigarettes by the stick as well as ban all forms of adverts, sponsorship, testimonials, and sale promotion connected with tobacco.
In the bill, cigarette manufacturers may be compelled to carry a special pictorial warning that covers half of the packet, informing smokers on the dangers of smoking.
Leading debate on the bill on Wednesday, Mamora said tobacco related diseases were on the increase hence the need to shield Nigerians from its harmful effects.
"The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates cigarette smoking currently kills 5.4 million people every year.
"Over half of that casualty will be recorded in developing countries like ours and if we fold our hands and do nothing, this century we are going to lose about one billion to tobacco related diseases.
"In 2006, the Lagos State Government discovered through a survey covering 11 hospitals in the state that two persons die each day from tobacco related disease," Mamora said.



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