Latest update November 25th, 2024 1:00 AM
Latest News
- ExxonMobil commences design for 7th project as Gov’t remains ‘iffy’ over approval
- Gov’t extends deadline for proposals on second phase of Gas-to-Energy project
- Hezbollah rockets land near Tel Aviv after big Israeli strike on Beirut
- 121 drivers nabbed speeding, 248 with unauthorised tinted glass
- Cop stabbed by Venezuelan national
“You don’t have to be a smoker to die from tobacco smoke” – Esseboom
Mr. Terrence Esseboom – Public Relations Office, Public Health Ministry
Globally some seven million people die each year from tobacco smoke. From this figure almost 900,000 will die from second-hand smoke. “So you don’t have to die from smoking, you just have to be in the vicinity of smokers,” said Terrence Esseboom, Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Public Health.
Mr. Esseboom, who was speaking at a media sensitisation forum at the East Coast Demerara, Grand Coastal Hotel, said “The death rate due to second hand smoke alone could wipe out completely in about two months, a country with a population the size of Guyana.”
But Esseboom noted that while the tobacco industry is investing its vast wealth in promoting smoking, it has been glossing over the fact that in addition to causing death, exposure to tobacco smoke has been known to cause diseases and disabilities.
Esseboom explained that if workers, for instance, are exposed to tobacco smoke on a regular basis they will have a risk of cancer that is between seven and 700 times higher. He said, too, that “children exposed to second-hand smoke suffer from a wide range of ailments including acute respiratory diseases, bronchitis and pneumonia, while adults will contract cancer of the lung and oral/nasal cavity; breast cancer in young, primarily pre-menopausal women, heart disease and heart attacks.”
The daunting aspects of tobacco smoking are not highlighted by the tobacco companies. “They just want you to see the good looking guy in his cowboy hat and his expensive jeans or the sexy-looking woman with the cigarette in her hand…but they hide the fact behind the dangers that it causes,” Esseboom underscored.
The problem of smoking, he explained, has not escaped regional attention. In 2007 CARICOM member states were spurred into legislative action to become World Health Organisation/ Framework Convention on Tobacco Control [WHO/FCTC] compliant.
As a consequence Trinidad and Tobago passed its Tobacco Control Act in 2009. In 2010, Barbados passed its Health Services [Prohibition of Tobacco Smoking in Public Places] Regulations banning smoking in public places.
Suriname followed suit in 2013, banning smoking in public places and all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship. In that same year [2013] also, Jamaica passed the Public Health (Tobacco Control) Regulations banning smoking in indoor public places and specified outdoor places [including bus stops and sports stadiums] and five metres there from. Jamaica also requires that 60 percent of all tobacco product packages carry health warnings and graphic images.
In Associate Member State, Cayman Islands, smoking is banned in public places under their Tobacco Law 2008 and Regulations 2010 giving teeth to the measure.
But according to Esseboom, “Guyana has been trailing her other CARICOM colleagues in this arena by failing to implement any of its obligations under the WHO/FCTC and its commitments made under the Port of Spain Declaration, and its constitutional commitment to safeguard the health of its people.”
Although Guyana acceded to the WHO/FCTC on September 2005, Esseboom revealed that “We are nine years behind schedule when we should have had legislation and/or policies to satisfy Article 11 of the WHO/FCTC – to adopt and implement effective measures to prohibit misleading tobacco packaging and labelling and to ensure that tobacco product packages carry large, clear, rotating health warnings and messages that cover fifty per cent or more of the package.”
“We are seven years behind the implementation of Article 13 of the WHO/FCTC – to undertake a comprehensive ban of all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.”
While legislatively Guyana has been chasing the CARICOM flock, Esseboom observed that “our prevalence rate of tobacco consumption among the youth population has given us a place on the podium bettered only by Jamaica and Dominica.” This translates to Guyana in 2010 having a 20.9 percent rate in 2010 – only better than Dominica’s 25.3 percent in 2009 and Jamaica’s 28.7 percent in 2010 among all CARICOM Member States.
But according to Esseboom, when Guyana acceded to the WHO/FCTC 12 years ago, “we are still serious now.”
Similar Articles
THE BLUNT OF THE DAY
Sports
Features/Columnists
The business class also funds undemocratic parties
…Peeping Tom Kaieteur News- There’s a peculiar phenomenon in Guyana, a sort of cyclical ritual, where members of... more
Rising Gun Crimes in the Caribbean: Urgent Action required by all
By Sir Ronald Sanders Kaieteur News – There is an alarming surge in gun-related violence, particularly among younger... more
Weekend Cartoon
