by Ram Maxey
FIVE million people around the world die every year from smoking, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). That’s 50 million every ten years on the average, although it could be more by then because the number of smokers increases along with the world’s population. That figures.
That’s a lot of deaths anyway one looks at it. Unnecessary deaths, mind you. And to think that it does not have to happen because it is preventable. Preventable in the sense that each individual human being was born into this world without a cigarette in his/her mouth. No one is compelled to smoke. It is a decision the smoker makes all by his/her lonesome. Addiction to smoking is an acquired habit which can be prevented. Or, if already acquired, can be gotten rid of if the desire to quit the vice is real, sincere along with the will power to the max!
Sadly, however, that isn’t the case. All types of addiction are difficult to discard, be it smoking or drinking liquor or gambling or what-have-you. But why do the majority of those who want to quit smoking fail to carry out their wish?
According to the 2009 Philippines Global Adult Tobacco Survey (PGATS) conducted by the Department of Health and the National Statistics Office, there were 17 million Filipinos who smoked that year, bad enough news as it were. But the good news was that 10.3 million of them WANTED to kick the habit. Back to bad news: Of the 10.3 million, only 4.5 million succeeded in quitting the vice. Well, maybe that’s better than nothing.
The sad thing about all this concern over smoking is that of the 10,000 survey respondents last year, 9,400 believed at the time that smoking causes illness like lung cancer and yet refuse to takes steps to quit the habit. It does not make sense. Maybe the nicotine has really gotten into their heads.
Cigarette smoking is one of the health issues cited in Proclamation 2001 that President Macapagal-Arroyo issued declaring 2010 as the “Year of the Lung”. That calls for a more intensified advocacy campaign and effective measures to curb the epidemic causing serious and debilitating lung disorders.
Among such measures, of course, involves stronger government action that will result in discouraging more people from taking up smoking instead of being content to simply force cigarette manufacturers to place a warning on cigarette packs that smoking is hazardous to one’s health. Such an admonition is too mild to scare smokers into quitting. Governments have to think of more drastic measures to drive home the fact that in Cancun, Mexico last year, representatives from 170 countries to the Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS) expressed serious concern over tobacco use which they said “remains legal although it kills more than five million each year, including 1.3 million who die of lung cancer.” So, there you are.
The key word there is “legal”. The manufacture, sale, distribution and use of tobacco products cannot simply be banned overnight, what with millions of people around the world dependent on the industry for their livelihood – the tobacco farmers, factory workers producing tobacco products, distributors, dealers, stores, even sidewalk vendors in this country. Resistance to any attempt to kill the industry outright is just not plausible within the foreseeable future. But governments can help mitigate the ill-effects of smoking in limited ways.
The Davao Experience
The city government of Davao under Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte, for example, has been contributing its share in the worldwide campaign against smoking through its anti-smoking ordinance which has been in force the past several years. The ordinance bans smoking in public transportation while in motion, in government buildings, in business establishments, hotels, restaurants, parks, etc.
Such a landmark ordinance has been the envy of other cities and towns whose authorities haven’t had the guts and the political will to duplicate the Davao experience. Davao City has shown them that it can be done. It takes extraordinary leadership, amigo, but that’s another story waitng to be told.
