World No Tobacco Day aims to increase public awareness of the tobacco industry’s marketing tactics for capturing generations of consumers and their interference in political processes that obstruct effective cigarette control.
The goal of World No Tobacco Day is to raise awareness of the efforts being made by the WHO to battle the tobacco epidemic, which claims the lives of up to half of its users and results in more than eight million fatalities each year.
The tobacco business significantly negatively influences the environment, which is expanding. This strain is placed unnecessarily on our planet’s fragile ecosystems and limited resource base.
Nonetheless, the CDC’s 2006-2017 Global Youth Tobacco Survey estimates that at least 14 million adolescents aged 13 to 15 use tobacco products globally now.
The event includes a wide range of themes each year, such as raising public awareness of the risks associated with tobacco use and what the WHO is doing to combat the tobacco pandemic.
History of Tobacco day
The World Health Organization (WHOWorld )’s Health Assembly declared April 7, 1988, the organization’s 40th anniversary, World No-Tobacco Day, in 1987. (1). Many legislative and health education initiatives with “Tobacco or Health: Choose Health” were sparked and recognized due to the event’s extensive news coverage. Examples of such initiatives in specific nations include smoking bans (Ethiopia).
The suspension of tobacco sales by the government (Cuba), government-sponsored radio Print campaigns promoting health (Lebanon), poster competitions (Spain), public cigarette-burning ceremonies (Nepal), and extensive public awareness campaigns (China).
Harms of Tobacco
- By its cultivation, manufacture, distribution, use, and post-consumer waste, tobacco harms our environment while endangering human health.
- Our water, land, beaches, city streets, and cigarette butts, including microplastics, are poisoned by tobacco’s growth, production, and usage.
- Don’t be fooled by the tobacco industry’s attempts to obscure the environmental damage it causes.
- The tobacco business employs strategies like “greenwashing” its goods by contributing to sustainability projects and reporting on environmental “standards” it frequently establishes.
- Every cigarette or tobacco product smoked is a waste of the essential resources we need to survive.
- Smoke from cigarettes comprises three different types of greenhouse gases and contributes to increased air pollution.
Youth-Specific Targets
The likelihood that someone may develop a nicotine addiction increases with age when they first start using tobacco products. The tobacco business uses this information to market to teenagers and young people through sponsorships and advertisements at cultural events, online, in the media, and shops.
According to studies conducted in the US and other nations, young people are more likely to use tobacco products if they encounter more advertisements for those goods. The American Surgeon General has added that watching individuals smoke in movies increases the likelihood of youngster smoking.
The amount of PG-13 or lower films that include smoking has decreased over the past 15 years, but those that do so more often. Tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, entice children and teenagers because of their tastes.
In the United States, tobacco firms are only permitted to offer cigarettes with a menthol taste since 2009. Yet, teenagers smoke menthol cigarettes at a higher rate than adults.
Young people’s usage of e-cigarettes is largely influenced by flavoring as well. More than two out of three young people who use e-cigarettes now say that flavors are a big part of why they first started using them.
Reasons why people use Tobacco?
Individuals claim to smoke for various reasons, including enjoyment, reducing stress, and in social settings. Finding out why you want to use tobacco is one of the first stages of quitting.
After that, you might reflect on your motivation for quitting. Around 80–90% of those who smoke often are nicotine addicts. Ten seconds after entering your body, nicotine travels to your brain. If a person stops smoking, withdrawal symptoms may develop. This is because their bodies need to adapt to life without nicotine. Some indications of withdrawal are:
- Being sad or depressed
- Having trouble getting to sleep
- Feeling tense, irritated, or grumpy
- having difficulty focusing and thinking clearly
- feeling jittery and restless
- decreased heart rate
- increasing hunger or gaining weight
Theme of WNTD
The WNTD theme focuses on a different topic relating to tobacco and the business each year. This year’s topic emphasizes how tobacco use affects the environment. It intends to reveal tobacco corporations’ attempts to “greenwash” their reputations by portraying themselves as ecologically benign.
The world’s primary cause of plastic pollution is leftover cigarette butts, which also contribute to ecological damage and decrease climate resilience.
In addition, tobacco firms produce 84 megatons of greenhouse emissions or comparable carbon dioxide. Tobacco firms concentrate up to 90% of their manufacturing in low- and middle-income nations, where they are most aggressive in marketing their products and where the environmental impact is greatest.
Conclusion
Tobacco use is a serious problem that affects all communities and hinders the accomplishment of Sustainable Development Goals. It directly harms the health of its consumers, but it also negatively impacts the economy, the environment, the well-being of women, and child labor in the nation.
Marketing tobacco products, such as cigarettes, cigars, e-cigarettes, and others, is a massive annual expense for tobacco businesses. DON’T BE DETERMINED IF YOU FAIL several times before giving up smoking since most people do! You can succeed. Stop right away.
FAQS
Q: Why does tobacco make you feel good?
The circulation carries nicotine to the brain, where it eventually arrives. Immediately after breathing cigarette smoke, vape mist, or chewing tobacco, nicotine prompts the brain to produce dopamine, making individuals happy.
Q: Is it OK to smoke tobacco?
The greatest method to safeguard your health is to refrain from using cigarettes. People are harmed and killed by tobacco. Roughly 1 in 5 fatalities in the US are directly related to smoking.
Q: Why do people smoke tobacco?
Nicotine is a stimulant that shortens a person’s response time and sharpens their focus and attention. The ritual of smoking is said to be enjoyable by many smokers. In addition, many reports that smoking helps them feel good. Smoking lessens their withdrawal symptoms from nicotine.