May 31 - World No Tobacco Day

"We need food, not tobacco / Grow food, not tobacco."

With a focus on world hunger, this year's campaign released by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) - World No Tobacco Day 2023. Grow Food, Not Tobacco - aims to raise awareness about how harmful tobacco is to the health of the planet. On the organization's website, the campaign states that tobacco cultivation is detrimental to our health, the health of farmers, and the health of the planet. The tobacco industry interferes with efforts to replace tobacco cultivation, thus contributing to the global food crisis.

This campaign encourages governments to end subsidies for tobacco cultivation and use those resources to help farmers transition to more sustainable crops that improve food security and nutrition.

According to PAHO, worldwide, 349 million people in 79 countries face acute food insecurity, an unprecedented number. Many of these people live in low- and middle-income countries, with more than 30 of those countries located on the African continent. Another common characteristic of many of these countries is that large areas of fertile land are dedicated to tobacco cultivation instead of being used to grow healthy food. Tobacco-producing countries often face negative economic impacts due to the health, environmental, and social damages caused by the cultivation of this product. In many cases, the foreign exchange earned from tobacco exports is used to import food. Tobacco cultivation harms the health of farmers and agricultural workers and causes the irreversible loss of valuable environmental resources, such as water sources, forests, plants, and animal species.

Pulmonologist and Sleep Medicine specialist, Jessica Polese, emphasizes the date for people to reflect on the issue raised by the Pan American Health Organization and on their own health. "There are so many harms that smoking causes to humans, and so much evidence of this, that it is still hard to understand that there are so many smokers," says Jessica. With a portion of the population becoming aware that smoking is harmful, another is being attracted by electronic cigarettes, which have flavors that deceive consumers into thinking they are smoking a device that is not harmful, when in fact it has become more dangerous than regular cigarettes and more addictive, enticing young people to use it," points out the doctor.

"Remembering that cigarettes not only affect the respiratory system but also cause cardiovascular diseases and strokes, as well as various cancers, such as lung cancer, where we have seen so many people affected and dying from it," warns Jessica.

World No Tobacco Day

World No Tobacco Day, adopted since 1988 by the member states of the World Health Organization, aims to raise awareness about the serious public health problem that the tobacco epidemic represents and the urgent need to implement and strengthen tobacco control measures.