Tobacco is harmful. Tobacco kills. Tobacco reduces the quality of life. Tobacco places a huge burden on the health system.
Guess we have all heard this. But we miss the actual impact of tobacco on lives. We think that it will not be me who will suffer from the ill effects of tobacco like cancer, respiratory problems, hypertension, cardiac diseases. We do not care because we do not have the capability to envision what will happen to us 10-20 years down the line. At times it may take more than 20-30 years and we are made to believe that to live life one needs o indulge in pleasures like tobacco and alcohol.
From behavioral studies we also know that mere statistics or number may not motivate us to act. Millions of children dying because of malnourishment, billions getting killed because of tobacco, road traffic accidents-do not motivate us to behave responsibly.
Individual stories of people who have suffered from tobacco will be presented later. Today let me numb you with numbers. All excerpts from Lancet series.
Base Tongue Cancer
Guess we have all heard this. But we miss the actual impact of tobacco on lives. We think that it will not be me who will suffer from the ill effects of tobacco like cancer, respiratory problems, hypertension, cardiac diseases. We do not care because we do not have the capability to envision what will happen to us 10-20 years down the line. At times it may take more than 20-30 years and we are made to believe that to live life one needs o indulge in pleasures like tobacco and alcohol.
From behavioral studies we also know that mere statistics or number may not motivate us to act. Millions of children dying because of malnourishment, billions getting killed because of tobacco, road traffic accidents-do not motivate us to behave responsibly.
Individual stories of people who have suffered from tobacco will be presented later. Today let me numb you with numbers. All excerpts from Lancet series.
Base Tongue Cancer
1. According to WHO, tobacco use killed 100 million people in the 20th century and, if trends continue, it will kill 1 billion people in the 21st. Furthermore, by the year 2030, 80% of these deaths will be in low income and middle-income countries.
2.Asia is at the frontline of the tobacco epidemic. Campaigns to curb the epidemic must succeed in this region if the world aspires to be free from tobacco in the 21st century.
3.Tobacco was politicised in the late 1980s, when the Office of the US Trade Representative threatened various Asian jurisdictions with trade sanctions under Section 301 (a) of the Trade Act of 1974.1 With these threats of economic sanctions, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Taiwan bowed to US pressure and accepted American cigarette imports.
4.The market share of US cigarettes in the four affected jurisdictions in Asia increased substantially after the countries were compelled to import US tobacco products under trade agreements—cigarette consumption per head was almost 10% higher than it would have been if markets had stayed closed to American cigarettes.
5.Research of the economic costs of tobacco has provided compelling data: between 2003 and 2008, 3·2% of total health-care expenditures in China were used to treat tobacco-related illnesses.
6.In 2012, the Asian Development Bank estimated that, in the absence of intervention, smoking will eventually kill about 267 million current and future cigarette smokers who are presently alive in five Asian countries (China, India, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam), and increases in tax would reduce the number of smokers and the number of smoking-related deaths, and would generate substantial new revenues.
7.More than half the tobacco consumed in the world is consumed in Asia.
Action:
Quit Smoking, Quit Tobacco
Do not tolerate passive smoking
Avoid Tobacco in any format
If you have never tried tobacco, never try it!
Go to the nearest cancer hospital to see for yourself what one suffers.
It is not just cancer, meet people who have had heart disease, respiratory problems.
References:
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