This Day (Lagos)
10 January 2008
Tobacco control activists insist the product is the world's most deadly consumed substance today.
It is also responsible for over 200 million deaths around the world and this number may triple by 2025. They point the way forward on the best approach to reduce consumption in Nigeria during an interactive session in Lagos. Godwin Haruna writes
The number of smokers world wide is on the rise daily. As you peruse this piece, it is estimated that about 15 billion tobacco sticks are smoked across the globe each day. Health experts have continued to warn that these substances have lethal health implications not only to the direct consumer, but others around the vicinity referred to as second hand smokers. What is to be done to reduce the rate of consumption and the debilitating health hazards it poses to public health in Nigeria?
This was at the crux of the matter at an interactive session organised by the Coalition against Tobacco (CAT) with the media recently in Lagos. Speaking during the event, Mr. Akinbode Oluwafemi, programme manager, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), who is also a frontline member of the coalition, noted that activities of tobacco companies needed a firmer control.
Oluwafemi said as a result of legal actions, liabilities and stricter control measures against the sale, distribution and use of cigarettes in historically profitable markets like the USA and Europe, tobacco companies have turned their focus to deploying countries like Nigeria. He added that they were taking advantage of the weak, porous and almost non-existent regulatory mechanisms to propagate the sale, advertisement and distribution of these lethal product in the most callous manner.
"They target young and underage persons in their marketing and sales strategy. They organise and participate in concerts with recognised pop stars, using advertorials with young beautiful women and rich looking men, flashy cars and mansions to lure these youths into smoking at a young age so as to make them life-long smokers. Thus, while there is a significant decline in smoking rate in the United States and Europe, in the developing world such as Nigeria, smoking rate increases by at least 20 per cent each year", he stated.
Also speaking during the event, Mr. Tunde Irukera of Simon Coopers Partners, one of the leading counsels handling tobacco litigation in Nigeria, said the tobacco firms would not have respite from litigation until their objective was achieved. Profoundly, Irukera noted that tobacco was the only product in the world that was guaranteed to injure the consumer if used.
He added that although other products might be risky, but the ultimate design is not to cause injury. He asked rhetorically that who should bear the injury from the consumption of a product?
He stated emphatically that manufacturers should be held responsible for the injuries that their products might cause the consuming public.
According to him, there are close to 10,000 cases of tobacco-related ailments in the health facilities of the Lagos State government. The legal practitioner added that the tobacco-related ailments are usually the very expensive diseases to manage. He said because procurement of drugs was very expensive in this part of the world, the government was expending huge sums of money in treating the various diseases.
"The government is already saddled with a lot of other responsibilities as there are various needs competing for attention to make life meaningful for the average man. On the other hand, tobacco companies declare huge profits annually in the last three decades. The huge profits should be used to defray expenses of those diseased as a result of consuming their products", he said.
Irukera added that in order to make the product available to every Tom, Dick and Harry, a stick of cigarette is much cheaper than sweets. Understandably, this strategy, he added, has helped to create a huge market for the product especially in the developing countries where there are relaxed control measures.
He said countries of the south were running an unequal race in the tobacco control struggle because of their obvious peculiarities. However, he added that it was one struggle they must not abandon for generations yet unborn. He urged legislators in the country to be more proactive in the control struggle since legislation would ultimately do more for tobacco control than litigation. He said this is because, tobacco firms are so wealthy and would not mind underwriting whatever legal expenses put on their way in order to protect their strangle-hold on the market.
Also contributing, his colleague in the tobacco litigation struggle, Mr. Dapo Akinosun, stated that most smokers start at a young age and that is why tobacco firms target them. To buttress his position, Akinosun took an interesting random sampling among the people at the hall of the event. He asked for those who had tried to smoke before.
In response, quite a sizeable number including ladies raised up their hands. He followed up his question with another on when they got introduced to the killer product. Every respondent said it was during their teen years, but fortunately for all, they were able to overcome the habit later in life.
Akinosun stated unequivocally that of all products that were produced in the world, it was only tobacco that kills. He said what himself and colleagues were doing was not to advocate that tobacco firms should not sell the deadly products, but that they should be prepared to accept their liabilities.
He stated that it was a matter of regret that the factories in Ghana were shut down in order for the ones in Nigeria to become operational. He said the Nigerian government gave the firms generous tax reliefs in order to manufacture products that are obviously harmful to the health of its citizens.
In a carefully researched document, the tobacco control activists gave verifiable statistics why tobacco has remained a product to be avoided like a plague. Cigarette, they contend, is the only product that is manufactured and sold that has no advantage whatsoever to the human body. Tobacco use killed 100 million people in the 20th century and if current trends continue, CAT says it will kill one billion people in the 21st century.
It says almost one billion men (35 per cent in developed countries and 50 per cent in developing countries) and 250 million women (22 per cent of women in developed countries and 9 per cent in developing countries) smoke cigarettes.
According to the 2006 World Health Organisation statistics, about 5.4 million persons die from tobacco-related disease each year, one person dies in every 6.5 seconds and this is the equivalence of one Boeing 747 jumbo jet crashing every hour. 110,000 of these deaths each year are recorded in sub-Saharan Africa, with not less than two each day from government run health facilities in Lagos alone.
In order to maximise sales, they accuse the tobacco industry of manipulating the nicotine content in cigarettes in order to ensure addiction to smoking and worldwide, over 15 billion cigarettes are smoked every day.
Cancer, the fact sheet stated, is the second leading cause of death and was among the first diseases casually linked to smoking. They alleged that there are about 4000 known chemicals in tobacco smoke; more than 50 of them are known to cause cancer.
"Smoking causes about 90 per cent of lung cancer deaths in women and almost 80 per cent of lung cancer deaths in men. The risk of dying from lung cancer is more than 23 times higher among men who smoke cigarettes, and about 13 times higher among women who smoke cigarettes compared with never smokers", CAT said.
CAT hopes to build a sustainable and formidable network for anti-tobacco activism in Nigeria, embark on rigorous legislative advocacy programme and push for the enactment of effective tobacco regulatory rules at the various states and the nation at large.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200801110566.html