Today is World No Tobacco Day and the World Health Organisation is calling on governments around the world to implement strong tobacco control measures.
According to the release by World Health Organisation, tobacco-related illness is one of the biggest public health threats the world faces, killing more than 7 million people a year. But tobacco use is one of the largest preventable causes of noncommunicable diseases.
On World No Tobacco Day 2017, World Health Organisation (WHO) is highlighting how tobacco threatens the development of nations worldwide, and is calling on governments to implement strong tobacco control measures.
These includes Banning marketing and advertising of tobacco, promote plain packaging of tobacco products, raise excise taxes and make indoor public places and workplaces smoke-free.
“Tobacco exacerbates poverty, reduces economic productivity, contributes to poor household food choices, and pollutes indoor air,” says Margaret Chan, director general of the WHO.
Chan adds “But by taking robust tobacco control measures, governments can safeguard their countries’ futures by protecting tobacco users and non-users from these deadly products, generating revenues to fund health and other social services, and saving their environments from the ravages tobacco causes.”
Apart from killing more than 7 million people every year, use of tobacco costs households and governments over US$ 1.4 trillion through healthcare expenditure and lost productivity.
According to a release by WHO, all countries have committed to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which aims to strengthen universal peace and eradicate poverty.
Key elements of this agenda include implementing the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, and by 2030 reducing by one third premature death from noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), including heart and lung diseases, cancer, and diabetes, for which tobacco use is a key risk factor.
The first-ever WHO report, Tobacco and its environmental impact states that tobacco smoke emissions contribute thousands of tons of human carcinogens, toxicants, and greenhouse gases to the environment. And tobacco waste is the largest type of litter by count globally.
Up to 10 billion of the 15 billion cigarettes sold daily are disposed in the environment. Cigarette butts account for 30–40% of all items collected in coastal and urban clean-ups, says WHO.
Oleg Chestnov, WHO’s assistant director-general for noncommunicable disease (NCDs) and Mental Health said, “one of the least used, but most effective, tobacco control measures to help countries address development needs is through increasing tobacco tax and prices.”
Governments collect nearly US$ 270 billion in tobacco excise tax revenues each year, but this could increase by over 50%, generating an additional US$ 141 billion, simply from raising taxes on cigarettes by just US$ 0.80 per pack (equivalent to one international dollar) in all countries.
WHO said that increased tobacco taxation revenues will strengthen domestic resource mobilization, creating the fiscal space needed for countries to meet development priorities under the 2030 Agenda.
