There are nine siblings of us in the family: five boys and four girls. My father smoked and so are my four brothers. I don’t smoke because I don’t like the fumes of tobacco. It’s good that all my sisters don’t smoke, too (because they have not seen our mother smoking).
You don’t do anything from smoking – only diseases. As the saying goes, “Smoking is dangerous to your health.”
Enough is enough. So, in 1987, the World Health Organization created World No Tobacco Day to draw global attention to the tobacco epidemic and the preventable death and disease it causes.
In 1988, a resolution was passed and designated May 31 of every year as the day to celebrate the World NO Tobacco Day.
This year, the WHO gives a platform to young people across the world. The United Nations health agency urges governments to shield them from predatory tobacco marketing tactics.
“The industry targets youth for a lifetime of profits, creating a new wave of addiction,” the WHO said in a statement. “Children are using e-cigarettes at rates higher than adults in all regions and globally an estimated 37 million youth aged 13–15 years use tobacco.”
Tobacco (scientific name: Nicotiana tabacum) originated in South America. It was originally used in rituals and ceremonies. When Christopher Columbus and his men returned to Spain after discovering America in 1492, one of the things they brought back with them was tobacco.
Today, the habit of smoking has become widespread, and hundreds of millions of people are now using tobacco in various forms. In recent years, however, most people in industrialized countries like the United States have recognized the hazards of smoking. Only 3 out of 10 adults smoke, compared with around 6 out of 10 forty years ago.
Faced with declining markets in their respective countries, the tobacco industry moves to developing countries. Forty years ago, no women in developing countries smoked and only about 20% of men. Today, 50% of men and eight percent of women smoke.
In the Philippines, tobacco smoking is illegal for minors. Unfortunately, a lot of young people these days smoke tobacco.
The Global Youth Tobacco Survey in 2019 showed 12.5% of students aged 13-15 in the country were current tobacco users. Among boys, the percentage of tobacco users was higher at 18.3% while for girls the figure was 6.9%.
But what is alarming is the increase in the use of electronic cigarettes among young people. Leonardo Jaminola III wrote for the Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development: “In the age group 13-15 years old, electronic cigarettes recorded the highest prevalence compared to other tobacco products. It is estimated that 14.1% of students in this age group are current users of electronic cigarettes.”
Anti-smoking groups consider cigarettes as poison. Their main components, as one health advocate eloquently puts it, are “tobacco which kills and nicotine which is addictive.”
Dr. Halfdan Mahler, former WHO director-general compared tobacco use to a “slow-motion suicide.”
Because of its poisonous contents, Roman Catholic Bishop Cornelius Lucey considered cigarettes as “cancerettes.” He said that the heavier a smoker a person is, the more likely he is to be a victim of lung cancer.
Lung cancer is widely recognized as being due almost entirely to smoking. A survey conducted among American chest surgeons confirmed this. Sixty three percent of those surveyed said that heavy smoking may lead to lung cancer. Among pathologists, 50% agreed.
Asked if they would advise patients to reduce smoking or give it up, 90% of the chest surgeons said yes; 83% of pathologists replied affirmatively and 57% of cancer researchers responded positively.
Aside from lung cancer, other smoking-caused health problems include respiratory diseases, peptic ulcers, and pregnancy complications, including low birth weight. Among malnourished mothers, low birth weight threatens children’s lives. Children born to smoking mothers also risk impaired physical and intellectual development.
Women who smoke face an increased risk of dying of breast cancer, according to an American study. The more cigarettes a woman smoked and the longer she had smoked, the greater her risk, the study noted. Those who smoked two packs or more a day, for instance, were 75% more likely to develop fatal breast cancer than were nonsmokers.
Smoking has also been observed to cause slower penile erection among men because excessive nicotine in the bloodstream “causes constriction of the penile artery, the blood vessel necessary in male erection.”
Smoking tobacco is one of the world’s leading killers. “Every year, more than 8 million people die from tobacco use,” the WHO reported. “Most tobacco-related deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries.”
Tobacco can also be deadly for non-smokers. Second-hand smoke exposure has also been implicated in adverse health outcomes, causing 1.2 million deaths annually. Nearly half of all children breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke and 65,000 children die each year due to illnesses related to second-hand smoke. Smoking while pregnant can lead to several life-long health conditions for babies.
Once a person starts smoking, he will have a hard time quitting the habit as tobacco contains nicotine which, according to former WHO chief Dr. Hiroshi Nakajima, “the most lasting and the most widespread addictive substance in the world.”
Are these enough to convince you to stop smoking even just for a day?
