Tobacco Smoking, an Unconquerable Habit
All smokers and even non-smokers know that smoking tobacco can harm their health and even can kill them. However it was not stopped and it continue to hold the entire World. Of course today tobacco control movement has increased than before.
For example many new voluntary organizations have been involved against tobacco. And thanks to this all organizations, people learned much more about the harmful effects of smoking.
Researchers found that about 500 million people alive today will die prematurely as a result of tobacco used, with one billion deaths from tobacco expected during this century. Future tobacco mortality depends largely on current smoking patterns. The increase in tobacco deaths is the result of both increases in the impressionable population size and increases in age-specific disease rates.
And especially low-income countries will have to pay the biggest toll in this respect, accounting for 87 percent of the increase in tobacco-attributable deaths between 1990 and 2020. Even though reducing smoking will reduce the load associated with smoking in the long run, the most urgent reduction in tobacco related mortality would be accomplished by encouraging cessation among current smokers.
Currently, under the Tobacco Control Act in Bangladesh, only written warnings on tobacco products are required to occupy 30 percent of the main surfaces of the packets. The warnings such as: “Smoking Kills” and “Smoking Causes Lung Cancer”. In general, pictorial warnings accompanied with written messages should account for 50 percent (front and back) of the total packet of tobacco products.
The new regulation has an amazing progress in Bangladesh implementing legislation to mandate pictorial warnings. Seven countries including Thailand, Australia and Singapore required all tobacco containing products to carry health warning pictorial and message accounting for a minimum of 50 percent both side of the total packet.
Most of the story of tobacco control in Bangladesh is still unwritten and events continue to unfold. It remains to be seen whether the tobacco control movement will be sufficiently powerful and active to counter industry tactics and convince the government to take strong measures to control tobacco.
The tobacco industry is a powerful force in Bangladesh than elsewhere and it will be difficult to uphold a highlight on tobacco in the face of so many competing causes of disease and ill health. But if the progress made over the past few years is any indication of the future, the many organizations and individuals working for tobacco control in Bangladesh have good reason to be hopeful.
Smoking is a health, social, economical and environmental problem that can not be ignored any longer, since it is the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the world.
