Tobacco.org

Editorial: Measures To Limit Tobacco Menace 

According to some latest sta tistics, tobacco kills more people than AIDS, alcohol, car crashes, murders, suicides and fires put together because a cigarette smoker not only causes injury to him but also people around him.

Risks The World Health Organization (WHO) lists no less than 23 tobacco-related diseases and says that nicotine exacerbates asthma, causes impotence, infertility, cardiac distress, stokes and cancer. These include cancers of the oral cavity, larynx, lungs, oesophagus, bladder and pancreas - with oral cancers accounting for 70 per cent of all cancers in men in Nepal. . . .

It is disturbing to note there are plenty of kiosks in Kathmandu which sell cigarette and chewing tobacco just outside the schools and colleges. Punitive measures are essential to deter selling tobacco products around educational institutions as consumption of tobacco products are increasing, and youngsters are almost obsessed about them. The government and the companies have a responsibility to protect non-smokers from passive smoking. What the government and corporate must do is provide incentives that dissuade smokers from their dependency on the cancer stick. For instance, include a caveat in a smoker's contract that denies him medical benefits should the illness be related to smoking. Government policy Every smoker knows that smoking is injurious to health. Many at one point or the other try to kick the butt but few succeed. It is important to recognise that addiction to smoking, like other substances, is a psychological disability. Government policy must hinge on a policy of inclusion.

Self-regulation is a cry in the wilderness. Locate smoking zones far away so that the distance to reach that zone itself would deter the smoker from lighting up every so often. The power of persuasion takes time. But it is far more effective.

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