World No Tobacco Day : World No Tobacco Day

World No Tobacco Day

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World No Tobacco Day

World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) was initiated in the year 1987, when the World Health Assembly (WHA) of the World Health Organization (WHO) passed a resolution, WHA40.38.

WHO also recognises individuals and organisations by conferring awards to those who have made outstanding contributions to the society in lowering the consumption of tobacco.

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World No Tobacco Day

WNTD is celebrated as an awareness day to draw people’s attention towards the negative repercussions of tobacco.

Governments use tobacco control measures in the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) to spread awareness in order to reduce the predominance of tobacco use which in turn reduces the heavy burden of disease and death that is attributable to tobacco use or exposure.

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World No Tobacco Day

WHO has selected Tobacco industry interference as the theme for this year’s World No Tobacco Day, which is marked on 31 May every year.

The campaign will focus on the need to expose and counter the tobacco industry’s barefaced tactics to weaken global tobacco control efforts. The process involves understanding the practices of the tobacco industry and then implementing tobacco control policies.

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World No Tobacco Day

On World No Tobacco Day, seminars and events are organised by health organisations and governments highlighting on punch lines and pictures to persuade people to quit consuming tobacco permanently and create a tobacco-free society. In India, World No Tobacco Day is observed with great fervour.

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World No Tobacco Day

About 200 million of the world’s one billion smokers are women and it is found that smoking during pregnancy adversely affects foetal development. Therefore, quitting smoking reduces impotence risk, pregnancy problems, premature births and miscarriage.

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World No Tobacco Day

Exposure to second hand smoke causes serious disease and death in non-smoking adults and in children. It is estimated that more than 600,000 people die each year from exposure to second hand smoke.

Children exposed to second hand smoking experience more serious illnesses like pneumonia, middle ear infections and asthma attacks. Babies exposed to passive smoking are more prone to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).

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World No Tobacco Day

Cigarette smoke affects our bodies and causes diseases like cancers of the lips, mouth, throat and larynx, heart diseases, lung cancer, oral cancer and many more.

However, quitting tobacco is not an easy job as dependence on tobacco involves a bunch of other processes related to behaviour, physiological phenomena etc. Very few people can actually quit the malign practise in their first attempt. But as they say, where there is a will there is a way. Practices like counselling, medicines can actually help.

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World No Tobacco Day

In India, about 900,000 Indians a year die from smoking-related diseases - that`s nearly one in 10 of all deaths in India.

Half of Indian males use tobacco and it is becoming more popular with younger people. However, an initiative has been taken in this regard. For example, Madhya Pradesh has become the first state in India to ban ‘gutka’. Similarly, Kerala government has imposed a complete ban on the sale and consumption of ‘gutka’ and ‘paan masala’ in the state.

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World No Tobacco Day

The need of the hour is to reduce the economic and health costs of this deadly epidemic. One way is to increase the price of tobacco through higher taxes to encourage tobacco users to quit and prevent children from starting to smoke. Putting a ban on smoking in public places is also an effective measure to reduce tobacco use. And it goes without saying that a total ban on tobacco marketing can substantially reduce tobacco consumption.

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World No Tobacco Day

Let’s take a look at the celebrities who have joined the list of latest non-smokers. The names now include the `Yes We Can` US President Barack Obama, heartthrob Brad Pitt, ‘Chote Nawab’ Saif Ali Khan, self-confessed chain smoker Ajay Devgn, superstar Aamir Khan, model-turned-actor Arjun Rampal, epic star Mel Gibson and Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen.

By Shruti Saxena

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