Tobacco, the silent but sure killer

Soon afterwards Jonah overcame by coughs as his lungs took in the unfamiliar smoke, but he was determined to give it a try as he had just learned from an advertisement that it was the latest trend.Trying to be part of the latest vogue, Jonah had used his meager allowances to purchase a stick of […]

Soon afterwards Jonah overcame by coughs as his lungs took in the unfamiliar smoke, but he was determined to give it a try as he had just learned from an advertisement that it was the latest trend.
Trying to be part of the latest vogue, Jonah had used his meager allowances to purchase a stick of cigarette, which cost him just N10, something so cheap but capable of putting him in the league of the big boys he taught. If only he knew the damage he was causing himself.
Unfortunately the vulnerable people in the society, that is, the young and the poor are mostly addicted to tobacco use. This is partly due to the simple reason that the cigarette stick remains very affordable for them.
The World Health Organization (WHO) on the recent “World Tobacco Day” had campaigned for an increase in taxes and consequently increase in prices of tobacco products as a way to discourage the use and addiction of tobacco both by primary users and secondary smokers.
 The tobacco industry considers the young adult years critical to the expansion of their market and sales. They develop marketing tactics that are slick and confuse teens that smoking is an ‘adult behaviour’ and these begin to gain footing, and the foundation laid during youth is used to secure their addiction in young adulthood.
 In particular, the tobacco industry believes that the drug effects of nicotine are “most rewarding to the individual under stress” and it is eager to offer its products as a way to calm nerves and relieve tension – such as the stresses of transition that occur during the teenage years.
 Tobacco, not people who smoke, is the villain here. Most adult smokers wish they could quit, but nicotine is an uncompromising drug with effects on the brain that mimic cocaine and heroin.
It should be regulated at least as tightly as those drugs are, because it is delivered with a mix of toxic chemicals that cause cancer, ruin the blood vessels, and scar the lungs and until that happens, the best thing that can be done is to make it harder for people to start when they are young.
In a bid to reduce Non communicable diseases, the then minster of the Federal Capital Territory, Dr Alıyu Modıbbo banned smoking in public places in 2009.
According to him, smokers were much a danger to themselves and those around them.
The gesture was later copied by the Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola who in February banned smoking in public places.
The director of the department for prevention of non-communicable diseases at WHO, Dr. Douglas Bettcher said “price increases are 2 to 3 times more effective in reducing tobacco use among young people than among older adults”. High prices are particularly effective in discouraging young people (who often have more limited incomes than older adults) from taking up smoking. They also encourage existing young smokers to either reduce their use of tobacco or quit altogether.
 “Tax policy can be divisive, but this is the tax rise everyone can support. As tobacco taxes go up, death and disease go down”, says Bettcher
 Smoking tends to be more prevalent among the poor as it is still a relatively inexpensive pleasure that less-educated and lower-income people are more susceptible to pursuing. Tobacco use is the world’s leading preventable cause of death killing nearly 6 million people each year, of which more than 600,000 are non-smokers dying from breathing second-hand smoke.
According to the WHO, if no action is taken, tobacco will kill more than 8 million people every year by 2030 with more than 80 percent of them among people living in low and middle income countries.
For many Nigerians imbibing a healthy lifestyle would have been a better option if they had known earlier what to do.
Musa Lawal of the Nigeria Trade Union Congress (TUC) who represented his president, at the just concluded Presidential Summit on Universal Health coverage recently   explained that government as part of its preventive strategies should heavily tax products that are harmful to health like tobacco and alcohol.
“Such proceeds can be used to pay for care for the vulnerable and those affected by diseases not covered by their insurance’, but he
A middle-aged man, Malik who is also a bricklayer says smoking is a part of him and it helps him gain strength to carry out his daily activities. When asked how he can afford to buy about 8 sticks of cigarette in a day out of his meager daily pay, Malik said “the cigarette is not expensive now and if I cannot afford to buy this cheap cigarette, then what can I possibly afford?”
Research however has it that low income earners or jobless adults take to smoking more because they lack a busy life style. A cigarette takes an average of about seven minutes to finish and therefore gives someone who is not busy, something to do for seven minutes.
 Raising taxes on tobacco in support of the reduction of tobacco consumption is a core element of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), an international treaty that came into force in 2005 and which Nigeria is a signatory to.
 The Director-General of WHO, Dr. Margaret Chan, in a statement made recently, said, “It has been estimated that by increasing tobacco taxes to about 50 percent, all countries would reduce the number of smokers by 49 million within the next three years and ultimately save about 11 million lives.”
According to this statement, “Today, every 6 seconds, someone dies from tobacco use. Tobacco kills up to half of its users. It also incurs considerable costs for families, businesses and governments. Treating tobacco-related diseases like cancer and heart disease is expensive. And as tobacco-related diseases and death often strike people in the prime of their working lives, productivity and incomes fall.”
To prevent smoking and keep young people from starting, it will take more than public health messages. It will require changing our economic policies to improve our neighbourhood living conditions. People need well-paying jobs and safe communities to reduce the stress that often underlies smoking.