Tobacco can kill 1 billion people by 2100 according to World Health Organization reports. The respective Governments need to act immediately to prevent the catastrophe. Action should be taking to prevent the use of tobacco. Global tobacco epidemic threatens the lives of many, which includes women and children.
Much revenue is collected through the tobacco taxes every year- about $200 billion around the world. Yet only 1% of the revenue is spent on tobacco control. Not much effort is being put into the control of the tobacco epidemic.
How Tobacco is a Major Killer?
Based upon the WHO report, “Global Tobacco Epidemic 2008”, young people need to be encouraged to avoid smoking. Smokers should be asked to quit. Protection should also be given to non-smokers from “second-hand” smoke. Governments should adopt six “tobacco control policies”:
- Raise taxes and prices of tobacco
- Ban tobacco advertising
- Monitor tobacco use to revert the epidemic
- Help those trying to quit
- Promotion and sponsorship
- Protect people from second hand smoke
- People should be warned about the dangers of tobacco(source)
So far the epidemic has killed around 5.4 million people a year, who were suffering from heart disease, lung cancer and other disease. By 2030, it is expected that the death toll will go up to 8 million a year. This indicates the seriousness of the problem. Much needs to be done to control the epidemic.
Furthermore, more than 805 of these tobacco- related deaths will occur in middle and low- income countries by 2030.
The problem will be acute in developing countries where the population growth rate is high and there are less medical facilities available to treat the affected patients. The potential users of tobacco are high in these countries. The cigarette companies are targeting developing countries to promote their sales. By 2030, the deaths caused due to tobacco use will go up from 50% to 70%.
Different types of tobacco can be responsible for diseases, such as standard cigarettes, bidis ( small hand rolled cigarettes) used in India, tobacco and clove cigarettes called Kreteks used in Indonesia and shisha smoked from water pipes. The current leading trends indicate that smoking will be a leading cause of death worldwide, more than HIV, maternity mortality rates, suicide, automobile accidents etc. Smokers are susceptible to heart attacks. The risk factor is very high. This was revealed by the Interheart study, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario.
Most cigarette manufacturing companies like to promote cigarettes and spend a lot on advertisements. Much revenue is sought from the sale of these cigarettes. Concern is less for the health hazards that can occur due to smoking. Respective Governments need to restrict these advertisements if they want to control the use of tobacco.
Efforts have been on to control the use of tobacco. The U.N. anti-smoking treaty, which came into operation last year, has emphasized on mandatory health warnings, restrictions on advertising in some media, and minimum age laws for smoking. (source). Those selling the products give advance warnings of the ill-effects of smoking.
The use of tobacco needs to be controlled; otherwise, it will have severe repercussions on the health of the users and population in general. Even the non-smokers are affected by smoking. Their health is also at a risk. The concern expressed by the U.N. regarding the increase in deaths needs to be taken seriously. Precautionary measures are better to prevent the epidemic.
