Theme: “We need food, not tobacco”

The theme of World No Tobacco Day 2023 is “We need food, not tobacco” to raise awareness about alternative crop production and marketing opportunities for tobacco farmers and encourage them to grow sustainable, nutritious crops.

Each year on 31st May, World No Tobacco day is organized by the World Health Organization to promote the awareness about the risk related to the consumption of tobacco, its product and its ill effect on the family, society and environment.

Tobacco use and its consumption is one of the leading causes of many types of cancer, like lungs, larynx mouth, esophagus, throat, bladder, kidney, liver, stomach, pancreas, colon and cervix, as well as acute myeloid leukemia. It is estimated that over 1 crore people are killed every year due to the consumption of tobacco.

Tobacco not only affects the health but also impacts the environment badly in many ways.

CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES

• Mobilize governments to end subsidies on tobacco growing and use of savings for crop substitution programmes that support farmers to switch and improve food security and nutrition.
• Raise awareness in tobacco farming communities about the benefits of moving away from tobacco and growing sustainable crops;
• Support efforts to combat desertification and environmental degradation by decreasing tobacco farming;
• Expose industry efforts to obstruct sustainable livelihoods work.

The key measure of campaign success would be the number of governments that pledge to end subsidies on tobacco growing.

HOW TO OBSERVE WORLD NO TOBACCO DAY

• Help to campaign by spreading the information on your social media platforms.
• It’s time to quit! You might not be ready to quit but you can start laying the groundwork for your exit by counting the number of cigarettes you smoke in a day. You’ll start to think more about your health and the amount of money you put into tobacco. When you’re ready to take the plunge, there are plenty of self-help books that will guide you through the early rocky stages.
• The best way to quit smoking is to never start. So try and encourage young people around you to avoid the habit altogether. Depending on where you live, there might be a march or some public demonstrations. Maybe you can design a cool poster to help promote them. Better yet, hold a contest to see who can create the best anti-smoking poster. Teenagers can be a bit mischievous, so you’ll want to clearly define what’s “appropriate” before they hit you with the final reveal.
• Warning labels on cigarette boxes deter people from smoking. Petition to support these laws so that the trend continues to gain momentum. Also, plain packaging laws could also use some more backing. These laws place restrictions on the logos and colors of tobacco products, which make them tougher to sell. You know how you can’t judge a book by its cover? Well, people definitely judge a product by its packaging. If label looks drab, we’re less likely to pay it any mind, and that’s totally not shallow. It’s not like tobacco has a good personality on the inside.

HORRIFYING FACTS ABOUT SMOKING

• Tobacco is full of chemicals. There are more than 7,000 chemicals in tobacco smoke.
• Some chemicals can cause cancer. 69 of these harmful chemicals are known to cause cancer.
• Smoking laws aren’t widespread. Only 20% of the world’s population is protected by smoking laws, mostly in high-income countries.
• The coming generations will also be affected
• Smoking can literally kill you. There is enough nicotine in five cigarettes to kill an average adult if ingested whole.

So let’s use World No Tobacco Day as a launching pad to a brighter and less smokey future!

YOUR HEALTH PHARMACY

Making your health our priority.