Smokers (health)
Article: Alice Aryeetey
“Smokers die young” and “Smoking is harmful to your health” is the inscription on some cigarette packs, alerting smokers on the dangers and harm smoking can cause to their lives but people ignore them and enjoy the habit of blowing the smoke anyway.
The inscriptions confirm that the manufacturers of these cigarettes are aware of its dangers but still produce and put them on the market for people to buy.
It does make sense in business, but on the morality scale, the tobacco industry is sending a lot of people to their graves before their time.
Despite efforts by various organizations and bodies through advertising campaigns to help people quit smoking, to reduce cancer and related health problems, the rate of smoking continues to rise in Africa.
Statistics show that smoking prevalence is increasing dramatically. The current youth smoking rate in Burkina Faso is 37%, in Ghana and Nigeria, 17%, in South Africa 24% and in Zimbabwe 58%. The tobacco marketing in Africa is massive and many children start smoking when as young as eight or nine years old.
According to Anti-tobacco experts, the chemicals used in the production of these cigarettes are very harmful to our health since they are not meant for human consumption.
Benzene, a petrol additive obtained from coal and petroleum and used as a solvent in fuel and chemical manufacture is one of the chemicals used in producing cigarettes. Another deadly cheamical is the formaldehyde, which is used to preserve dead bodies and and known to cause cancer, respiratory and gastrointestinal problems.
Ammonia, acetone, tar, nicotine, carbon monoxide and other more harmful chemicals are been used to manufacture or produce cigarettes.
Most cigarette smokers die of tobacco-related diseases, and pregnant women who use cigarettes also have birth defects including mental and physical disabilities in their babies.
According to experts,children and babies who live in a home where there is a smoker are more prone to athsma and ear, nose and chest infections. They also have an increased risk of dying from cot death (sudden infant death syndrome) and are more likely to become smokers themselves when older.
On the average, they do less well at reading and resoning skills compared with children in smoke-free homes, even at low levels of smoke exposure.
The Bystanders who do not smoke are the most vulnerable to these harms caused by the secondhand smoke they breathe in and this laed to the banning of smoking at many work and public places.
Ninety per cent of lung cancer cases are due to smoking, and smoking is the most common cause of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) which is a collective term for a group of conditions that block airflow and make bretahing more difficult.
Smoking stains the teeth and gums and causes an acid taste in the mouth which contributes to the development of ulcers. It reduces the blood supply to the skin and lowers levels of vitamin A, thus makes the skin pale with more wrinkles.
According to experts, smokers are more likely to get lung cancer, throat cancer and mouth cancer. Only 0.5 per cent of people who had never touched a cigarette develop lung cancer.
Other major risks caused by smoking are that it raises blood pressure, a risk factor for heart attacks and stroke.
Who should therefore be blamed for the consequences and bad effects cigarettes and tobaccos have on our lives?
Is is the companies that produces it, the one who imports it, the one who sells it, or the ignorant smoker out on the street ,or yet the literates who knows of the dangers but still ignores and enjoy the habit of smoking?
In the face of all these, a growing phenomenon that is rearing its ugly head is tobacco companies offering free cigarettes to young people at events with the intention of getting them hooked.
I therefore urge the government to take first-rate step about this issue to protect the lives of all smokers. A stitch in time they say saves nine, but to me, a stitch in time saves generations to come.
