‘325m Smokers Are On Death Row’

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says 325 million out of the 650 million smokers world wide would die from tobacco-related diseases.

Of the number, WHO, in a report, said 40 per cent would die of cancer, 35 per cent from heart disease and stroke while 25 per cent would die from lung diseases.

The Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, presented the report at a ministerial press briefing to mark the 2010 “World No Tobacco Day” on Friday in Abuja.

“Experts have informed that every cigarette smoked takes seven minutes off a smoker’s life and someone dies from tobacco-related ailment every eight seconds,” he said.

He said the theme, “Gender and Tobacco with an emphasis on Marketing to Women,” focused on women as they were the major target of the tobacco industry.

“Tobacco companies have launched marketing campaigns that present cigarette smoking as feminine and fashionable just to counter scientific evidence that smoking is socially unacceptable and unhealthy,” he said.

He said the theme was timely as it reflected the current trend where women comprised about 20 per cent of the world’s smokers.

Chukwu said the increased prevalence of tobacco smoking and other forms of tobacco consumption by women and young girls was alarming.

“In a recent survey in Nigeria, it was shown that more girls than boys who never smoked were likely to initiate smoking cigarette within a year if nothing is done to halt this worrisome phenomenon,” he said.

He said tobacco was now the second major cause of death and the leading preventable cause of death in the world.

“Tobacco contains over 4,000 chemicals and about 60 of them are carcinogenic and many more cause other diseases,” he added.

He further said that the total number of youths exposed to passive smoking at home was 34.3 percent in 2002.

The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Sen. Bala Mohammed, said studies in 151 countries showed that adolescent girls’ smoking rate accounted for eight per cent while adolescent boys was two per cent.

Bala said Nigeria was a marketing target for tobacco companies as women smoking rate stood at 1.7 per cent as against the established habit smoking rate of 15.4 per cent for men.

He emphasised that the ban on tobacco use in public within the FCT was still in force.

Minister of Women Affairs, Mrs Josephine Anenih, said tobacco marketing to women draws on gender stereotypes that falsely link tobacco use among women and young girls to concepts of freedom and prestige.

Anenih recommended that a campaign against encouraging and marketing female smoking should be embarked on.

The WHO representative in Nigeria, Dr Peter Eriki, said steps should be taken to check the worsening global tobacco epidemic among women.

“WHO calls for particular attention to protect women from the tobacco companies’ attempts to attract them into lifestyles of nicotine dependence,” she said.