World No Tobacco Day - May 31, 2022
The World Health Organization holds World Tobacco Day on May 31st of each year, intending to spread awareness about the risks of tobacco use and how we can make the world tobacco-free. This yearly observance also informs the public of the dangers of using tobacco, the business practices of tobacco companies, what the WHO is doing to fight the tobacco epidemic, and what people around the world can do to claim their right to health and healthy living and to protect future generations.
The tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced. It has killed more than 8 million people a year across the globe. More than 7 million deaths result from direct tobacco use, while roughly 1.2 million results from non-smokers' secondhand smoke exposure.
By the Numbers
- 100 million – the estimated number of people killed by smoking during the 20th century.
- 16 million – the number of adults in the U.S living with a disease attributed to smoking.
- 8 million – the number of people who died from smoking in 2017.
- 15% – the percentage of global deaths that are attributed to smoking.
- 70 – the age over which more than half of the deaths occur due to smoking.
- 1-in-5 – the number of adults in the world who smoke tobacco.
- 80% – the percentage of the world’s 1.3 billion tobacco users who live in low- and middle-income countries.
- 7 million – the number of deaths among the 1.3 billion tobacco users due to direct smoking.
- 1.2 million – the number of deaths among the 1.3 billion tobacco users due to secondhand smoking.
Critical Messages for World No Tobacco Day
All forms of tobacco are harmful – there is no safe level of exposure to smoking. Cigarette smoking is the most common form of tobacco use worldwide. Other tobacco products include waterpipe tobacco, smokeless tobacco products, cigars, cigarillos, roll-your-own tobacco, pipe tobacco, bidis, and kreteks.
Over 80% of the 1.3 billion tobacco users worldwide live in low- and middle-income countries, where the burden of tobacco-related illness and death is the heaviest. Tobacco use contributes to poverty by diverting household spending from basic needs such as food and shelter to tobacco.
The economic costs of tobacco use are substantial. They include high health care costs for treating the diseases caused by tobacco use and the lost human capital that results from tobacco-attributable morbidity and mortality.
In some countries, children from poor households are employed in tobacco farming to boost family income. Tobacco growing farmers are also exposed to several health risks, including the "green tobacco sickness".
Tobacco harms the environment
Tobacco growing, manufacturing, and use poison our water, soil, beaches, and city streets with chemicals, toxic waste, cigarette butts, microplastics, and e-cigarette waste. Don’t fall for the tobacco industry’s attempt to try and distract from its environmental harms by greenwashing their products through donations to sustainability initiatives and reporting on ecological “standards” they often set themselves.
Make the tobacco industry clean up their mess
The tobacco industry is making a profit by destroying the environment and needs to be held accountable for the environmental destruction and made to pay for the waste and damages, including recovering the cost of collecting these wastes.
Quit tobacco use to save our planet
Tobacco smoke contributes to higher air pollution levels and contains three greenhouse gases.
Help tobacco farmers switch to sustainable crops
Governments and policymakers should support tobacco farmers to switch to alternative, more sustainable livelihoods to reduce the environmental impact of tobacco growing, curing and manufacturing while continuing to implement tobacco control measures.
Key Measures to Reduce the Demand for Tobacco
Secondhand smoke kills
Secondhand smoke is the smoke that fills enclosed spaces when people burn tobacco products such as cigarettes, bidis, and water pipes. There is no safe level of exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke, which causes more than 1.2 million premature deaths per year and serious cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.
Almost half of children regularly breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke in public places, and 65,000 die each year from illnesses attributable to second-hand smoke. In infants, it raises the risk of sudden infant death syndrome. In pregnant women, it causes pregnancy complications and low birth weight. Smoke-free laws protect the health of non-smokers and are popular, as they do not harm businesses and they encourage smokers to quit.
Pictorial health warnings work
Studies show that pictorial warnings significantly increase people’s awareness of the harms of tobacco use. Large pictorial or graphic health warnings, including plain packaging, with hard-hitting messages can persuade smokers to protect the health of non-smokers by not smoking inside the home, increase compliance with smoke-free laws and encourage more people to quit tobacco use.
Mass media campaigns can also reduce the demand for tobacco by promoting the protection of non-smokers and by convincing people to stop using tobacco.
Bans on tobacco advertising lower consumption
Comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising, promotion, and sponsorship can reduce tobacco consumption. A comprehensive ban covers both direct and indirect varieties of promotion.
- Direct forms include, among others, advertising on television, radio, print publications, billboards and more recently on various social media platforms.
- Indirect forms include, among others, brand sharing, brand stretching, free distribution, price discounts, point of sale product displays, sponsorships, and promotional activities masquerading as corporate social responsibility programs.
Taxes are effective in reducing tobacco use
Tobacco taxes are the most cost-effective way to reduce tobacco use and health care costs, especially among youth and low-income people, while increasing revenue in many countries. The tax increases need to be high enough to push prices up above income growth. An increase of tobacco prices by 10% decreases tobacco consumption by about 4% in high-income countries and about 5% in low- and middle-income countries.
Despite this, introducing high tobacco taxes is a measure that is least implemented among the set of available tobacco control measures.
Tobacco users need help to quit
Without cessation support, only 4% of attempts to quit tobacco will succeed. Professional support and proven cessation medications can more than double a tobacco user's chance of successfully quitting. Studies show that few people understand the specific health risks of tobacco use. However, when smokers become aware of the dangers of tobacco, most want to quit.
Illicit trade of tobacco products must be stopped
The illicit trade in tobacco products poses significant health, economic, and security concerns worldwide. It is estimated that 1 in every ten cigarettes and tobacco products consumed globally is illicit. Various players support the illicit market, ranging from petty traders to big tobacco companies and, in some instances, even organized criminal networks involved in arms and human trafficking.
Tax avoidance (licit) and tax evasion (illicit) undermine the effectiveness of tobacco control policies, notably higher tobacco taxes.
The tobacco industry and others often argue that high tobacco product taxes lead to tax evasion. However, experience from many countries demonstrates that illicit trade can be successfully addressed even when tobacco taxes and prices are raised.
Stopping illicit trade in tobacco products is a health priority and is achievable. But doing so requires improving national and sub-national tax administration systems and international collaboration. The WHO FCTC Protocol to Eliminate the Illicit Trade of Tobacco Products (ITP) sets out a range of significant measures and interventions to reduce tobacco use and its health and economic consequences.
How to Observe World No Tobacco Day as an Individual
Count the number of cigarettes you smoke
You might not be ready to quit, and who can blame you? It's tough. But you can start laying the groundwork for your exit by counting the number of cigarettes you smoke in a day. You'll start to think more about your health and the amount of money you put into tobacco. When you're ready to take the plunge, there are plenty of self-help books will guide you through the early rocky stages. You can do it!
Educate the youth
As they say, the best way to quit smoking is never to start. So try and encourage young people around you to avoid the habit altogether. Depending on where you live, there might be a march or public demonstrations. Maybe you can design a cool poster to help promote them. Hold a contest to see who can create the best anti-smoking sign. Teenagers can be naughty, so you'll want to clearly define what's “appropriate” before they hit you with the final reveal.
Lobby for sticker laws
Warning labels on cigarette boxes deter people from smoking—petition to support these laws so that the trend continues to gain momentum. Also, plain packaging laws could use some more backing. These laws place restrictions on the logos and colors of tobacco products, making them tougher to sell. You know how you can't judge a book by its cover? Well, people judge a product by its packaging. If the label looks drab, we're less likely to pay it any mind, and that's not shallow. It's not like tobacco has a good personality on the inside.
Sources:
https://www.paho.org/en/campaigns/world-no-tobacco-day-2022
https://extranet.who.int/ncdsmicrodata/index.php/catalog/270