Push to set up 2 Tobacco-free zones in each MOH area

World No Tobacco Day is May 31

Sri Lanka has something to be proud of while strongly pushing its anti-tobacco campaign as World No Tobacco Day draws close on Wednesday (May 31).

“We are urging that at least two Tobacco-Free Zones be established in each of the 358 Medical Officer of Health (MOH) areas,” said Dr Samiddhi Samarakoon, Director of the Health Ministry’s NonCommunicable Diseases (NCD) Unit. It is under the NCD Unit that ‘Prevention and Cessation of Tobacco’ fall.

Explaining that the NCD Unit plays an advocacy role, she says that it provides guidelines for the establishment of Tobacco-Free Zones which discourage people from using tobacco in any form. These guidelines are implemented through Medical Officers-NCD (MOs-NCD) Prevention in the 25 districts.

There are 148 Tobacco-Free Zones across the country, it is learnt.

Another prong of the NCD Unit’s role is to arm every health worker, from doctors to nurses to minor staff, to talk to any tobacco user they meet on the ill-effects of such use and dissuade them from this habit. Once again, the ground-level training is carried out by the MOsNCD Prevention.

Referring to gains that Sri Lanka could be proud of, Dr Samarakoon said that even though this year’s World No Tobacco Day theme is ‘We need food, not tobacco’ addressing the issue of tobacco-growing, this country is unlike many others in the region.

She said: “We are in a good position than earlier because unlike countries such as Bangladesh and Nepal which have large acreages under tobacco, Sri Lanka has only 0.4% of its agricultural land with tobacco.”

Getting back to tobacco use, Dr Samarakoon said that smoked tobacco products include cigarettes, beedi, cigars, pipes, hookah and shisha, while smokeless tobacco products include betel quid chewing, tobacco chewing, baabul, snuff, thool, paan masala and guthka. (See graphic)

According to some chilling world statistics shown by the NCD Unit:

• 8 million people die each year due to tobacco consumption

• This 8 million include around 1.2 million deaths due to secondhand smoke

• Tobacco smoke contains 4,800

compounds, among them poisons like carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide. Smoking generates about 90 carcinogens (cancercausing agents).

• Smoking is the leading risk factor for NCDs such as cardiovascular disease (CVD), respiratory diseases, cancer and diabetes. For smokers, the risk of developing CVD and strokes is twice as high as for non-smokers.

• Smoking causes 80% of lung cancer cases and increases the likelihood of developing other types

of cancer like throat and oesophageal cancer.

• Smoking leads to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) which is incurable and leads to death.

• For teenage and young smokers, the nicotine in cigarettes is dangerous for the maturation of their brains.

Underscoring the severe adverse impact of second-hand smoke, Dr Samarakoon says that if anyone smokes in their home, it turns into a danger zone. It is an “invisible killer”.