Anti-Smoking Campaign Here (Page 3)

Story: Lucy Adoma Yeboah (Sat. August 22, 2008)
A Group of campaigners from the world anti-smoking coalition, have arrived in the country to partner the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and the media to push the tobacco-free agenda forward.
The objective of the group is to advocate for the passage of the National Tobacco Control Bill in Ghana to give meaning to the ratification of the tobacco control treaty introduced by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2003.
The WHO treaty, known as the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, has the objective of reducing the public health toll from tobacco, since the treaty obliges the countries that ratify it to adopt measures that include bans on advertising tobacco products, requirements that all ingredients used be listed on packaging and broader legal liability for manufacturers, which include payment of higher taxes.
The anti-tobacco team — which is made up of members of the Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada and the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth, Nigeria — have already met officials of the Food and Drugs Board (FDB), the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS), the Ghana Health Service (GHS), some media houses and other stakeholders to push the issues of smoke-free environment in Ghana forward.
During a visit to the Daily Graphic in Accra on Thursday, the Executive Director of the Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, Ms Cynthia Callard, said that there was the need to protect the lives of non-smokers from the activities of those who had chosen to die through smoking and, therefore, called for the immediate passage of the bill.
She said countries should not be deceived by the few dividends they received from tobacco manufacturing companies, since they ended up spending even more on the health of the people because of the effects of tobacco.
Ms Callard said Ghana’s failure to pass the bill was making the rest of the countries in the sub-region to adopt wait-and-see attitude, since many of them considered Ghana as a pacesetter when it came to policy formulation.
She said it was important that stringent measures were adopted to free the world of tobacco, since 50 per cent of people who smoked globally, would eventually be killed by tobacco if they did not stop.
Other members of the team that visited the Daily Graphic were the Research Director of the Physicians for a Free-Smoke Canada, Mr Neil Collishaw; the Programme Manager of Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth, Nigeria, Mr Akinbode Oluwafemi; a Senior Health Research Officer and the Focal Person for Tobacco Control of the GHS, Mrs Edith Koryo Wellington; and a Health Promotion Specialist of the GHS in Tamale, Alhaji Abdul-Rahman Yakubu.
Ms Callard reiterated the fact that tobacco was dangerous to human life and called on governments to attach the same seriousness being attached to the fight against HIV/AIDS and other health-related issues.
On his part, Mr Oluwafemi said it was unfortunate that after drawing a draft National Tobacco Control Bill about five years, Ghana had not been able to pass it into law, a situation he described as disappointing.
He said apart from the ill effects associated with smoking, the habit also affected the smokers and their families financially, since funds needed for the upkeep of households were spent on tobacco.
A paper made available to the Daily Graphic by the team indicated that tobacco contained nicotine, tar and other chemicals, and other 4,000 dangerous compounds, which include ammonia, carbon monoxide, formalin and mercury, which caused cancer.
It said the irony of the situation was that between 70 and 75 per cent of smokers lived in developing countries where majority of the population was poor.
Tobacco, it said, was the second major cause of death in the world, the fourth most common risk factor for disease worldwide, killed one in 10 adults worldwide (five million deaths each year), killed one person every 6.5 seconds worldwide and also shortened one’s lifespan by about 20 to 25 years.
On its effects on society, the paper said tobacco would cause 10 million deaths per year by 2025 if unchecked, seven million of which would be in the developing world, adding that the use of the product would be the leading cause of mortality globally.
It also stated that death from tobacco would overtake the combined deaths due to pneumonia, diarrhoea, tuberculosis (TB) and pregnancy complications.
The paper described types of smoking as active smoking, which also involves chewing of tobacco, and passive smoking, which is involuntary smoking, which exposed non-smokers to the effects of smoking.