Drop it?
International Smoking Cessation Day
In 2014, it falls on November 20.
The International Smoking Cessation Day was established by the American Cancer Society in the 1970s.
The World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control entered into force in 2005. It has become one of the most widely recognized treaties in the history of the United Nations, numbering more than 170 countries and covering 89% of the world's population.
In 2008, WHO introduced a set of measures to further tobacco control and to assist countries in implementing the WHO Framework Convention:
- monitoring of tobacco use and prevention measures;
- protecting people from tobacco use;
- assistance to stop tobacco use;
- warning about the dangers associated with tobacco;
- enforcement of prohibitions on advertising, promotion and sponsorship of tobacco;
- raising taxes on tobacco products.
Tobacco use is one of the most significant threats to human health that has ever arisen in the world. According to WHO, tobacco kills up to half of the people who use it.
In the XX century, tobacco smoking caused 100 million deaths, while maintaining current trends in the XXI century, about one billion people will die due to tobacco smoking.
Tobacco leads to almost six million deaths annually, of which more than five million are tobacco users and former tobacco users, more than 600 thousand are non—smokers exposed to tobacco smoke.
Unless urgent measures are taken, the number of annual deaths by 2030 could exceed eight million people.
Almost 80% of the world's one billion smokers live in low- and middle-income countries.
Almost half of the world's children regularly breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke. More than 40% of children have one smoking parent.
Among adults, tobacco smoke causes serious cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, including coronary heart disease and lung cancer. Among infants, it causes sudden death. In pregnant women, tobacco smoke leads to the birth of a child with a low body weight.
Tobacco smoke, which contains more than four thousand chemicals, of which at least 250 are known as harmful, and more than 50 as carcinogens, causes and exacerbates many diseases, acting on almost all organs.
Scientists have found that when smoking one pack of cigarettes, a person receives a dose of radiation seven times more than that which is recognized as the maximum permissible. And radiation of tobacco origin, together with other carcinogenic substances, is the main cause of cancer.
According to WHO, since 2008, the global population covered by at least one effective tobacco control measure has more than doubled from one billion to 2.3 billion people, which is more than one third of the world's population.
Despite the anti-smoking measures taken by many Governments, the number of smokers in the world is constantly growing and is currently approaching a billion. These data were provided by researchers who analyzed tobacco consumption indicators in 187 countries.
According to the results of the "Global Adult Survey on Tobacco Consumption" conducted in 2009, Russia was among the world leaders in the prevalence of smoking (43.9 million Russians smoked, which is 39.1% of the total population), and the rate of male smokers (60.2%) was the highest in the world.
According to various experts, 330 to 500 thousand people die annually in the Russian Federation from tobacco-related diseases.
In Russia, the basis for the start of active work with this problem was the accession in 2008 to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
Then the Government of the Russian Federation approved the "Concept of Countering Tobacco Consumption for the period 2010-2015", which served as the basis for the preparation of a federal law on the protection of citizens' health from exposure to tobacco smoke and the consequences of tobacco consumption, which entered into force on June 1, 2013.
It provides for the phased introduction of stringent measures. At first, smoking was banned in stadiums, schools, universities, hospitals, shops, playgrounds, as well as in elevators, airplanes and gas stations, advertising and promotion of tobacco sales were also prohibited. At the second stage (from June 1, 2014), smoking was prohibited on trains, at train stations, in hotels, cafes and restaurants. In addition, the sale of cigarettes was restricted, and the screening of films with smoking scenes should be accompanied by appropriate social advertising.
Fines for citizens for smoking in an inappropriate place range from 500 to 1.5 thousand rubles, and violation of the law by legal entities threatens to pay up to 90 thousand rubles.
The tightening of legislation in the field of tobacco smoking, as shown by the analysis of public opinion, has yielded results — there are more non-smokers in Russia.
According to the Ministry of Health of Russia, announced in June 2014, the implementation of the anti-tobacco law has already contributed to a decrease in tobacco consumption in Russia by 16-17%. Rosstat states that during the period of the law on protection from tobacco smoke, the number of smokers decreased by an average of 12%, and tobacco organizations say about 6-8%.
Stopping tobacco use is the best solution to protect the health of smokers themselves and others.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru20.11.2014