Today is World NO TOBACCO day. WHO highlights how tobacco is hazardous for health.

Smoking is injurious to health. Though this statutory warning is printed on all cigarette packets, people continue to smoke their lungs out. The question raised is why at all are these products manufactured if they are so bad? This remains unanswered, though.

Smoking kills, it is also a waste of money. WHO is asking the government to implement strong measures to control consumption of tobacco. Banning tobacco usage advertisements, raising excise tax, keeping public places smoke free are some of the steps which have already been followed.

Lung damage is one of the hazards caused by smoking. Active smokers suffer and so do the passive smokers. Need for having closed smoking rooms has also been highlighted.

Cultivation, production, distribution, consumption and waste generated by tobacco cause economic damage to a great extent apart from creating health problems.

WHO works to develop and maintain and report data based on health outcomes related to consumption of tobacco. For the tobacco addicts, quitting tobacco may not be an easy task but results have shown that it can be done through strong will power. Advertisements showing medical reports of tobacco users are being circulated widely to bring awareness of the dangers it causes to personal health and that of loved ones around. Counselling is also made available to users who wish to quit tobacco after suffering the consequences of its usage and also for those who wake up in time to save themselves. It is also reported that Actor Amitabh Bachchan quit smoking almost 35 years ago. He has been requesting the masses to quit smoking by quoting the effects on social media.

People smoke first only for experience, then for fashion and then it becomes a habit. Tobacco kills more than 7 million people every year. WHO requests one and all to quit smoking to save mankind.

Tobacco scars the environment

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 7000 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.
• Cigarette butts account for 30–40% of all items collected in coastal and urban clean-ups.

Tobacco threatens women, children, and livelihoods

Tobacco threatens all people, and national and regional development, in many ways, including:

• Poverty: Around 860 million adult smokers live in low- and middle-income countries. Many studies have shown that in the poorest households, spending on tobacco products often represents more than 10% of total household expenditure – meaning less money for food, education and healthcare.
• Children and education: Tobacco farming stops children attending school. 10%–14% of children from tobacco-growing families miss class because of working in tobacco fields.
• Women: 60%–70% of tobacco farm workers are women, putting them in close contact with often hazardous chemicals.
• Health: Tobacco contributes to 16% of all noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) deaths.

With inputs from  mediacentre