Growing Concerns Over Use Of Tobacco Among Youths

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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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GROUP SEEKS PROMPT APPROVAL OF TOBACCO VONTROL BILL

Ban on Smoking - FCT Minister, Secretary disagree

tobacco will kill more than 10m people annually by 2030

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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