The yearly celebration ‘World No Tobacco Day’ warns the public on the dangers of using tobacco, informs the business practices of tobacco companies and what people around the world can do to claim their right to well-being and healthy living and to protect future generations.
The Member States of the World Health Organization created World No Tobacco Day in 1987 to draw global attention to the tobacco epidemic and the preventable death and disease it causes.
Why do people smoke?
If smoking causes so much harm, why do people choose to smoke? Prof. Vahid Mazidi Sharafabadi from the School of Sociology, Tehran University in Iran, conducted an extensive study entitled ‘Causes of Smoking and its Solutions’. According to this study, some of the reasons why people smoke are as follows: being accustomed to smoking; it becomes a habit; it is recreation and entertainment; it is a fun behaviour; it promotes relaxation; it gives a sense of dignity and pride, etc.
The negative effects
Tobacco use has predominantly negative effects on human health. Tobacco smoke contains more than 70 chemicals that cause cancer. Tobacco contains nicotine, which is a highly addictive psychoactive drug. When tobacco is smoked, nicotine causes physical and psychological dependency.
Tobacco use is the single greatest cause of preventable death globally. As many as half the people who use tobacco die from complications of tobacco use. The WHO estimates that each year tobacco causes about 8 million deaths (about 10% of all deaths) with 600,000 of these occurring in non-smokers due to second hand smoke (passive smoking). In the 20th century tobacco is estimated to have caused 100 million deaths.
The three dimensions
“Tobacco causes damages in three dimensions”, explained Dr. Giacomo Mangiaracina, Adventist scientist and leading expert on Tobaccology in Italy, during an interview with the EUDnews. “First the person (toxicity, addiction, chronic disease, tumor-causing, damage to the reproductive system), then the economy (health and social expenses, smuggling, crime, poverty and exploitation), and finally the environment (contamination of water, air and soil, depletion of crops, deforestation, fires and urban cleanliness.”
Europe
Among the WHO regions, Europe has the highest prevalence of tobacco smoking among adults (28%) and some of the highest prevalence of tobacco use by adolescents. While tobacco use was previously largely a male phenomenon, the gap in prevalence between male and female adults is getting smaller.
Compared to the rest of the world, the WHO European Region has one of the highest proportions of deaths attributable to tobacco use (smoking, also second hand). WHO has estimated that tobacco use is currently responsible for 16% of all deaths in adults over 30 in the Region, with many of these deaths occurring prematurely.
The Adventist Church and tobacco
For over a century, the Seventh-day Adventist Church has warned its youth and the general public regarding the addictive and health destroying nature of tobacco smoking. The American best-seller author and co-founder of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Ellen G. White, affirmed more than 100 years ago (1905) that “Tobacco is a slow, insidious, but most malignant poison. In whatever form it is used, it affects one’s constitution adversely. The use of tobacco is inconvenient, expensive, uncleanly.”
This is why the Adventist Church has been implementing smoking cessation programs around the world for decades. One example is the efforts of Wayne McFarland, an American Adventist physician and co-author of the "5-Day Quit Smoking Plan", an anti-smoking program that has helped millions of people free themselves from tobacco addiction since the 1960s. It is worth noting that the stop-smoking program was devised at a time when smoking was prescribed to treat breathing problems. In 1963, Time Magazine even reported on it.
At the end of their five-day course, McFarland claimed, 75% of all signees give up smoking, and up to 40% were still off tobacco a year later. During his long life, McFarland has received numerous awards from various institutions and universities, including the World Health Organization's Medal of Merit in 1988.
Solutions
In addition to the plan devised by Adventist physician Wayne McFarland and implemented by the Adventist Church Worldwide, some solutions are suggested also in the Theran study, that is the importance of individual volition, the creation of an anti-smoking culture, making cigarettes scarce and expensive, preventing smoking in public places, and replacing it with healthy avenues of entertainment.
