WHO: Quit smoking, leave the pack behind

While recognizing the addictive power of nicotine, an official of the World Health Organization has urged smokers to take a giant step towards better health by quitting smoking.

Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director-General of WHO, said there is a need to make the nicotine replacement medicines more widely available by reducing the cost to bring them within the reach of smokers everywhere. The WHO Chief issued the call in connection with the World No-Tobacco Day celebration on May 31, 1999 with this year’s theme “Leave the Pack Behind.”

Many people have tried to give up smoking, only to find themselves drawn back to it a few months later. “This is a challenge for us all, and we have to rise to it because we know that getting more smokers to quit is the key to reducing the projected tobacco-related death toll over the next two decades,” said Brundtland.

He noted that a recent survey in a large developing country revealed that two-thirds of smokers mistakenly believe that smoking does little or no harm; few are interested in quitting, and fewer still have successfully quit.

According to Brundtland, there is a need to greatly increase the rates of successful quitting as most smokers who do give up immediately are those without formal help.

Nicotine replacement medicines such as nicotine gum, patches, nasal spray and inhalers as well as non-nicotine medicines such as bupropion can double people’ s chances of succeeding, he added.

“The good news is that there are real health gains to be made from stopping at any age. Those who give up in their early 30s enjoy a life expectancy similar to people who never smoked,” Brundtland added.

Based on the researches made by WHO, one out of every two smokers who start at a young age and continue smoking throughout their lives will ultimately be killed by a tobacco-related illness.

A WHO study revealed that world-wide deaths due to smoking could triple in the next two decades aside from the 25 tobacco-related diseases known today.

WHO added that smokers who begin smoking in adolescence and continue to smoke regularly have a 50 percent change of dying from tobacco. Half of these will die in middle age, before age 70, losing around 22 years of normal life expectancy.

“With prolonged smoking, smokers have a death rate about three times higher than non-smokers at all ages starting from young adulthood,” Brundtland said.

This developed as the Center for Disease Control and Prevention joined WHO in promoting the World No-Tobacco Day, an annual international one-day observance which is intended to help people and their governments understand the hazards of tobacco use.

CDC revealed that the use of smokeless tobacco can cause oral cancer and oral leukoplakia (precancerous oral lesions) and is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and nicotine addiction.

However, despite its adverse health effects, the use of smokeless tobacco is very prevalent, particularly among white adolescent males and continues to be a major public health problem in the United States.