The bad news about smoking, and the good news: 8 million die from tobacco use yearly; quitting brings lasting benefits
- Oncologist Tony Mok calls smoking ‘a sure way to introduce carcinogens into the body’; cancer-causing chemicals hit the lungs first, and travel through the body
- 70 per cent of smokers want to quit, a study says; to succeed, some form of counselling is advised rather than going it alone
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), tobacco kills up to half of smokers – unless they quit. Every year, more than 8 million people globally die from tobacco use.
May 31 is World No Tobacco Day, which the WHO set up in 1987 to draw global attention to the tobacco epidemic and the preventable death and disease it causes.
Tobacco was once considered a universal remedy for a slew of ills. Between 1935 and the early 60s, cigarette advertising had images of doctors and nurses apparently encouraging smoking, with copy that read: “More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette” and “Why physicians call our new brand a Health Cigar”.
In many countries today, tobacco advertising is mostly banned. Cigarette packages have strongly worded health warnings with graphic images of diseased organs and sick people, warning of the smoking’s dangers.
In Hong Kong, these include “Smoking causes peripheral vascular disease” with a photo of blackened, diseased toes, a call to “Quit smoking for future generations”, and the phone number for the Hong Kong government’s Quitline: 1833 183.
