Photo: OMS
World No Tobacco Day is celebrated yesterday. A celebration created by WHO on 1967 to make people aware about tobacco harmful effects on health and that has been received both with enthusiasm and resistance all over the world by governments, Public Health Organizations, smokers, producers and tobacco industry ever since.
A video appeared on internet several days ago and it is one of the most visited ones at the moment all over the world. It shows a two years old kid; he suffers from addiction to tobacco and he can smoke even 40 cigarettes a day in front of their parents’ passivity, who think he is healthy despite the kid’s obesity and the panic attacks he suffers when he is not supplied with tobacco.
The video is a dramatic document which shows the last consequences of a tragic reality: the fact that, despite anti-tobacco laws, commercials showing nicotine poisoning harmful effects on health and the large amount of information we have access to regarding this matter, not only do people keep on smoking, but they keep on talking about “smoker’s rights”, too, as soon as serious iniatives do appear in order to ban smoking on public places.
Smoking kills. We all know that. But one quarter of the Spanish population is addicted to tobacco despite nicotine poisoning is the first cause of avoidable illness, disability and death in Spain. And the worst thing is that there is still an important social permissiveness. Where does this irresponsibility come from? Do creating anti-tobacco laws make sense while tobacco industry is an important source of incomes for our government?
Not only does nicotine poisoning mean health problems on smoking people. WHO considers that around 700 million children, almost half the children population in the world, are breathing air that has been polluted by tobacco smoke, mainly at home. The incidence is so important that WHO considered that passive exposure to tobacco smoke can be considered a violation of the rights collected on Children Rights on United Nations Convention (1989).
The World No Tobacco Day 2010 insist upon the fight against the tobacco epidemic regarding women, using the motto “Gender and tobacco: tobacco promotion addressed to women” as they are an important aim for tobacco industry, since it needs to capture new consumers to replace almost have of the current consumers who will die prematurely due to diseases related with tobacco. Besides, it has been shown that smoking during pregnancy is linked to harmful effects such as minor weight when birthing or with high HAPs dose presence on diet which is associated with negative reproductive results as it is stated on one of the latest research published by INMA Project (Infancia y Medio Ambiente).
Perhaps it is all of us with our permissiveness and scarce awareness that are collaborating, unconsciously, to nicotine poisoning status quo. This is why, throughout these lines we would like to encourage Inspira readers to get information on this matter and make a serious thought on giving up on smoking, if we are smokers, or keeping a critical and responsible attitude regarding the zero permissiveness in front of passive nicotine poisoning.
Additional information:
- WHO’s report on nicotine poisoning epidemic all over the world.
- TV3 report where Dr Sunyer, INMA Project Director explains nicotine poisoning harmful effects during pregnancy (in Catalan).
- Resources to give up on smoking by Asociación Española contra el Cáncer (in Spanish).
- Get independent from tobacco, consciousness raising campaign undertaken by several organizations.
- Active nicotine poisoning undertaken by “For Mothers and Fathers” (in Spanish).
- Passive nicotine poisoning undertaken by “For Mothers and Fathers” (in Spanish).
- Smoking during pregnancy is associated with high HAPs dose presence on diet.
Tags: diffusion, health, pollution, prevention, Respiratory diseases, way of life, who
Tags: diffusion, health, pollution, prevention, Respiratory diseases, way of life, who
[...] Several days ago, due to the World No Tobacco Day, we wrote about the need of putting an end to the indulgence regarding nicotine poisoning. In Inspira we talked about having zero tolerance and for making prevail the right to health over the supposed “smokers’ right”. [...]