Concord Times (Freetown)
Tanu Jalloh
2 June 2008
World Health Organization (WHO) has urged governments to protect the world's 1.8 billion young people by imposing a ban on all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.
On Saturday the world health agency joined local partners among them Youths Against Tobacco Smoking in Sierra Leone to process in observance of the World No Tobacco Day May 31.
National Coordinator Dr. Williams Ohaeri told Concord Times that it was disheartening to know that Sierra Leone remains the only country in the world that has neither signed nor ratified the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) treaty.
"Tobacco is a poison that has deprived our nation of a healthy workforce, depressed most households especially low-income ones of basic necessities such as food, education and health care." Jagiko Enterprises, the only recognised importer and sole distributor of Boss cigarette in the country, has refused to comment but its social activities most times take the form of advertisements and publicity in a country where youths apparently take pleasure in smoking to add to their social status.
Meanwhile, the country's only psychiatrist Dr. Edward Nahim, who is also head of the Kissy Mental Home in Freetown, has disclosed that both men and women smokers face similar risks of developing one or more of some twenty-four smoking related diseases.
This year's campaign focuses on the multi-billion dollar efforts of tobacco companies to attract young people to its addictive products through sophisticated marketing.
While government confirmed that tobacco planting was a booming trade in the northern town of Kamakwie, a senior official at the ministry of health and sanitation said they were working very hard to get all documents in place before they could table a proposal which could eventually lead to the imposition of a ban on smoking in public places.
Recent studies prove that the more young people are exposed to tobacco advertising, the more likely they are to start smoking. Despite this, only 5% of the world's population is covered by comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.
Tobacco companies, meanwhile, continue targeting young people by falsely associating use of tobacco products with qualities such as glamour, energy and sex appeal.
Since most people start smoking before the age of 18, and almost a quarter of those before the age of 10, tobacco companies market their products wherever youth can be easily accessed - in the movies, on the Internet, in fashion magazines and at music and sports venues.
In a WHO worldwide school-based study of 13-15 year-olds, more than 55% of students reported seeing advertisements for cigarettes on billboards in the previous month, while 20% owned an item with a cigarette brand logo on it.
"Half measures are not enough," said Dr Douglas Bettcher, Director of WHO's Tobacco Free Initiative added Dr Bettcher. "When one form of advertising is banned, the tobacco industry simply shifts its vast resources to another channel. We urge governments to impose a complete ban to break the tobacco marketing net," he said.
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What you said makes no sense whatsoever. Do you believe in freedom of choice at all? It is no ones place to take away somebody's free will. If a person wants to make a decision that doesn't harm a third party, so be it, that is their choice and nobody but them can make it. Even if there was a ban on tobacco altogether, how would one go about enforcing it? In case you didn't know, prohibition does not work, it never has. If this law would pass, there would be an absurd number of people rotting in jail for… [Read Full Text]
Do you know the cost to society of all those sick and dying smokers? How much do you think it costs for all of us to pay medical insurance costs for the hundreds of thousands of smokers admitted to hospitals every year? Don't you think every smoker is violating my right to affordable health insurance for my family?
Sick and dying smokers violating Your right to affordable health insurance? The opposite is true but don't let the facts stand in Your way to oppose the use of tobacco by others. The WHO led charge financed by Pharmaceutical Multinational companies directly and indirectly evolved into a witch hunt in Canada against smokers. Also in some parts of the U.S. Please visit; www. Forces International to get an ideal of what is ahead for those who blindly believe the good intentions of WHO.
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Sierra Leone is indeed a world leader for billions of children who have and will cried of pain and loss of mothers and fathers because the tobacco companies disrespect human life on this planet.
If terrorist were responsible for killing as many people as the tobacco companies there would certainly be another world war to end this atrosity against the human race.
The tobacco company CEOs have no shame, they are the demonics of the blue planet. Evil in its highest form as they knowingly produce an addictive poision for profit.
Every major leader on this planet, if they are… [Read Full Text]
I have said many times that if the tobacco companies TRULY do not wish to 'hook' young smokers (an obvious lie, since it would eliminate their business), they would support a law I have proposed. This year - no change in the minimum age required to buy/possess tobacco. Next year - the minimum age to buy/possess tobacco increases by one year to 19. The following year - the minimum age to buy/possess tobacco increases by one year to 20, and so on. It is very simple. In no more than 70 years or so, all existing smokers would be dead… [Read Full Text]