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[av_heading heading=’URBAN FARMER | Stamping out tobacco for health, and national development’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY JULIO P. YAP JR.
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Monday, June 5, 2017
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MEASURES to stamp out tobacco use can help countries prevent millions of people falling ill and dying from tobacco-related disease, combat poverty and, reduce large-scale environmental degradation, based on a report made by the World Health Organization (WHO).
WHO recently highlighted how tobacco can threaten the development of nations worldwide, and is calling on all governments to implement strong tobacco control measures.
These include banning marketing and advertising of tobacco, promoting plain packaging of tobacco products, raising excise taxes, and making indoor public places and workplaces smoke-free.
It says that tobacco use kills more than seven million people every year and costs households and governments over $1.4 trillion through healthcare expenditure and lost productivity.
“By taking robust tobacco control measures, governments can safeguard their countries’ futures by protecting tobacco users and non-users from these deadly products, generating revenues to fund health and other social services, and saving their environments from the ravages tobacco causes,” says WHO director-general Dr. Margaret Chan.
All countries have committed to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which aims to strengthen universal peace and eradicate poverty.
Key elements of this agenda include implementing the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, and by 2030 reducing by one third premature death from non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including heart and lung diseases, cancer, and diabetes, for which tobacco use is said to be a key risk factor.
The first-ever WHO report, “Tobacco and its environmental impact: an overview,” also shows the impact of this product on nature, including:
Tobacco waste contains over 7,000 toxic chemicals that poison the environment, including human carcinogens.
Tobacco smoke emissions contribute thousands of tons of human carcinogens, toxicants, and greenhouse gases to the environment, and tobacco waste is the largest type of litter by count globally.
Up to 10 billion of the 15 billion cigarettes sold daily are disposed in the environment.
Many studies have shown that in the poorest households, spending on tobacco products often represents more than 10 percent of total household expenditure – meaning less money for food, education and healthcare.
On the health aspect, tobacco contributes to 16 percent of all non-communicable diseases (NCDs) deaths.
But tobacco use is one of the largest preventable causes of non-communicable diseases, the WHO emphasized.
Tobacco control represents a powerful tool in improving health in communities and in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
SDG target 3.4 is to reduce premature deaths from NCDs by one third by 2030, including cardiovascular and chronic respiratory diseases, cancers, and diabetes.
Another SDG target, 3.a, calls for implementation of the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC).
The WHO FCTC entered into force in 2005, and its Parties are obliged to take a number of steps to reduce demand and supply for tobacco products.
Actions addressed in the Convention include protecting people from exposure to tobacco smoke; banning tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship; banning sales to minors; requiring health warnings on tobacco packaging; promoting tobacco cessation; increasing tobacco taxes; and creating a national coordinating mechanism for tobacco control. (jaypeeyap@ymail.com/PN)
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