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Tobacco is a serial killer – Health Minister warns

Jun 10, 2010 News

“Tobacco is a killer; it is a serial killer of the worse kind that mankind has ever known.” This notion was expressed by Minister of Health Dr Leslie Ramsammy recently as he addressed a belated observance of World No Tobacco Day at the Cyril Potter College of Education.
According to Minister Ramsammy, “There is nothing on the horizon that can challenge tobacco for the title that it currently holds, absolutely nothing.”
And the deaths caused by all the wars recorded in history are not comparable to those that have been wreaked by the use of tobacco, the Minister asserted.  Indeed, in the 20th century more than 100 million people were killed by tobacco, he added.
“At the pace that it is killing people in the first decade of the 21st century unless we do something to stop it now one billion people will be killed in the 21st century by tobacco. We are not talking about a trivial killer but we are talking about a killer with an astounding record.”
According to reports, tobacco alone was responsible for approximately 5.4 million deaths. It is for this reason the Minister said that it is crucial that entities join forces in the Health Ministry’s crusade against tobacco, which is, regarded a tireless killer.
“We need to say enough is enough…If you are a smoker stop now; if you are not a smoker don’t start…Smoking kills you slowly.”
According to the Minister, today there are tobacco companies, because of greed, that try to persuade people that “tobacco smoking is a sexy thing. It is not! It kills you by rotting your body from inside out but it does other things,” he cautioned.
The Minister revealed that even if unlighted there are about 2,900 harmful chemicals on a stick of tobacco. When smoked some of the chemicals “spill-up” and transform into about 4,000 chemicals instead, he added.
“We know quite well about nicotine…Among the things it does is affect the lungs sac and prevents people from in-taking the required amount of oxygen…It affects the tissues in the brain and so you have all kinds of diseases….”
It was during the World No Tobacco day observance that CPCE was officially declared a No Smoking Zone. Minister of Education, Shaik Baksh, in endorsing the move had highlighted that strong disciplinary action will be taken against teachers if they are in breach of the ‘No Smoking’ declaration.
According to Minister Shaik Baksh, the Ministry of Education was one of the first organisations to join forces with the Ministry of Health when Minister Ramsammy decided to declare workplaces smoke free zone.
“It is over a year now that our schools have all got posters and later on, all the locations of the Ministry of Health itself had put up posters…”
And according to Baksh, it is his expectation that there are no breaches in the school system to adhere to the ‘No Smoking’ warning, which applies not only to students but equally to teachers as well. He revealed that following the ‘No Smoking’ at schools across the country there were reports that teachers were breaching the rules. “I want to announce here today that if one teacher is found breaching that rule and we can establish that fact strong disciplinary action will be taken against that teacher. We will ensure that the Teaching Service Commission acts.
“We cannot have one rule for the students and another rule for the teachers. Often we have seen that, but the Ministry will not tolerate such a situation.”
He emphasised that the Ministry has a zero tolerance for smoking and alcohol use in the school system

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