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The main cause of writing this letter is to tell those who haven’t started smoking not to dare think about it. Please if you don’t smoke don’t start. Those who are doing it really hate it. . . .
They regret. Ask one you see across the road, ask him if he has enough money for smoking tomorrow; he certainly doesn’t, but he will smoke tomorrow don’t ask me how.
Instead of being an aspiring smoker, join a super buddy or anti-drug organisation. Do something about the growing number of young smokers, girls and boys. They are wasting their money in something fatal the money that would be used for business and developing of the country’s economy. Build one soul build a nation.
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Tobacco is a health problem directly resulting from the impact of globalisation. As other expects put it: "[Tobacco] provides examples of the ways in which globalisation, trade liberalisation, modern communication and marketing, direct foreign investment and the growth of multi-national corporations can impact on the poor, on life expectancies and health status, and on the ability of national governments to legislate for and implement tobacco control policies." This article is an attempt to help demonstrate why tobacco is a developmental issue and also a public health issue. One could as well argue that it may be considered to be within the same bracket as AIDS. Like HIV and AIDS it will certainly pose a challenge to those who deny the reality of tobacco as an epidemic. So many lives of fellow Swazis are at risk--many unwittingly. This article is a humble attempt to let us understand why - given all that we know - so little is being done about this silent yet venomously deadly epidemic. All evidence point to the reality that tobacco smoking, like HIV, is on the increase in the country. Like HIV, it is being denied and very little seems to be done about it at all levels. Like HIV, it is not easy to confront it, let alone change. Nevertheless, we must face up to the reality of how the use of tobacco is damaging our people, especially the young--the very vestige of our future as a people and society. . . . The one greatest challenge we are facing as country in this front is the illicit trade on this deadly product as demonstrated by the recent spate of cigarette smugglings in truck loads! You and I have a duty to play our role and help the people of this country overcome this impeding epidemic regardless of who is purported to be involved in the smuggling syndrome--remember this words "without fear or favour"? The ball is in our court!
THE Swaziland Tobacco Co-operative Company Limited has taken Minister of Agriculture and Co-operatives Mtiti Fakudze to the High Court for an order setting aside the Commissioner of Co-operatives’ decision to institute a forensic audit into its affairs.
On Friday, the company obtained a High Court order setting aside the Commissioner’s notice of a special general meeting of its members scheduled for the same day (16th May, 2008).
Matthew Khumalo, who is the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the company, told the court that in November, last year, some officers from the Commissioner of Co-operatives had a meeting with them.
MARKETING Manager of British American Tobacco (BAT) Swaziland John Titmus says the ‘Be Correct’ programme, launched in October last year, has proved to be the most effective way of clamping down on counterfeit tobacco smuggling into Swaziland.
The programme identifies and rewards outlets which only stock genuine tobacco products.
It qualifies them for a draw, conducted on a quarterly basis, for three non-monetary prizes to the value of E55 000, and a E75 000 annual prize.
The last trader to win the prize was Ntabamhloshana Store’s Director Masotja Ziyane. The draw was monitored and approved by KPMG.
- It may be a dim silver lining to a particularly dark cloud, but one apparent result of the Aids pandemic in Swaziland is that fewer people there are smoking.
John Kunene of health ministry said: "When people learn they are HIV-positive, they are counselled to live a healthy lifestyle to prolong their lives.
"The shock that they may die prematurely of Aids is just the type of trauma that gets people to stop smoking."
Although the Council on Smoking, Alcohol and Drugs (Cosad) has no statistics on the reported decline, it says there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to buttress the claim.
It may be a dim silver lining to a particularly dark cloud, but one apparent result of the Aids pandemic in Swaziland is that fewer people in the country are smoking.
"When people learn they are HIV-positive, they are counselled to live a healthy lifestyle to prolong their lives. The shock that they may die prematurely of Aids is just the type of trauma that gets people to stop smoking," says John Kunene, principal secretary at the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare.
Although the Council on Smoking, Alcohol and Drugs (Cosad) has no statistics on the reported decline in smoking, it says there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to buttress the claim. . . .
Even the newsrooms of Swaziland's two daily papers have changed their ways: traditionally havens for prolific cigarette smokers, the offices no longer feature journalists working in a haze of smoke. . . .
"Aids is no longer an immediate death sentence if they follow a healthy lifestyle. What they must do is some moderate exercise, take vitamins, lower or cut out alcohol consumption -- and no smoking," he adds.
"I used to smoke, but I lost a taste for it when I got sick," says an HIV-positive contractor from Matsapha, an industrial centre near Manzini.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters Health) - Women who use smokeless tobacco rather than smoking cigarettes during pregnancy may still put themselves and their babies in jeopardy, government researchers reported Friday at the annual meeting of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine here.
"We need to do more research about whether smokeless tobacco is a safe substitute for smoking, it may not be that simple," said study co-author Dr. Mark Klebanoff, director of the division of Epidemiology, Statistics and Prevention Research at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Bethesda, Maryland.
The researchers hoped to evaluate the effect of snuff, or smokeless tobacco, on the health of the developing fetus. Lead author Dr. Lucinda England of the NIH and colleagues examined data from the Swedish Medical Birth Register for women who delivered babies during 1999-2000.
The researchers compared the 789 snuff users to the 11,242 cigarette smokers and 11,500 women who refrained from using any tobacco, looking at rates of preterm delivery, the pregnancy complication preeclampsia and restriction of fetal growth.
Swaziland is currently preparing legislation aimed at discouraging smoking in public places and indiscriminate sale of tobacco in the country.
Speaking in Mbabane Wednesday during the launch of World No Tobacco Day, the country's health and social welfare minister, Phetsile Dlamini, appealed to businesses to stop using sports sponsorship to advertise tobacco.
She also appealed to larger countries not to dump cigarettes banned in their respective territory in Swaziland.
She denounced the smuggling of such cigarettes into the country where they were being sold even to the youth.