World No Tobacco Day launched...Daily Graphic pg.32 Tuesday June 02/08

Story: Rebecca Quaicoe Duho

THIS year’s World No Tobacco Day has been launched in Accra with a call on stakeholders to help take action against the rising trend of tobacco use among the youth.
The stakeholders — including the government, religious bodies, non-governmental organisations, the private sector and the media — are being challenged to pursue actions aimed at protecting the youth from the subtle and deceptive marketing strategies of tobacco manufacturing companies.
The theme for this year’s celebration is “Tobacco free youth” and it was launched by the Deputy Minister of Health (MoH), Dr Mrs Gladys Norley Ashitey.
According to statistics from the World Health Organisation (WHO), tobacco smoking is the second most common risk factor for diseases worldwide, killing one in every 10 adults, while 70 per cent of teenagers who smoke die by age 45 from tobacco-related illnesses.
Dr Ashitey said tobacco use across the world had reached an epidemic proportion, which her ministry alone could not handle.
She said the ministry, together with other partners including the Ghana Education Service, was working to get a tobacco bill passed into law.
When passed, she said, the law would give more meaning to the ratification of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), an internationally standardised treaty for tackling the tobacco epidemic.
Dr Ashietey said the bill would also constitute the legal framework for the enforcement of tobacco control activities in the country.
The health minister, who lectured the youth from some junior and senior high schools in Accra on some of the dangers of tobacco smoking at the launch, mentioned some of the immediate health consequences of smoking as respiratory and non-respiratory effects and addiction to nicotine.
A Chief Psychiatrist at the Ministry, Dr Akwasi Osei, who spoke on the effects of tobacco smoking, said tobacco contained nicotine, tar and other chemicals with over 4,000 compounds including ammonia, carbon monoxide, formalin, mercury and other irritants, toxicants and mutagens, adding that most of those compounds could cause cancer.
The WHO Country Representative in Ghana, Dr Joachim Saweka, said tobacco was the leading preventable cause of death in the world.
He said a ban on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship was a powerful tool to protect the youth, stressing that it was one of WHO’s strategies designed to combat tobacco use.
The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Elias Sory, called on the youth to stay away from smoking because it could lead to improper development of their lungs and other health complications as they grow up.
The Deputy Director of the Ghana Education Service, Ms Dora Asorsor, who chaired the function, said the Service had put in place school health programmes aimed at educating the youth on the effects of smoking and drug usage.
She called on the youth to be involved in the campaign against tobacco use, especially among their peers.