It is not fun; It is not healthy-
Research
If you thought smoking is fashionable, you are in for a rude shock, according to research.
Every single year, tobacco-use-related complications kill over 8 million people globally, with over 7 million of the casualties being direct smokers and tobacco users, and 1.2 million dying from second-hand exposure to tobacco smoke, according to the 2020 World Health Organization (WHO) data.
Two years later, the numbers must be staggering high.
As the consumers continue to die, the tobacco industry continues to push its products with more gusto, expanding and gaining a wider market in Africa and beyond; the purchasing power and tobacco product accessibility have therefore been on the rise.
All genders and all ages are using tobacco products, be it through smoking cigarettes, tobacco sniffing, or chewing.
The Numbers in Africa
In Africa, tobacco use among young adolescents stands at 13 percent.
Approximately 13 million women use tobacco, with over 22, 000 such women dying every single year.
Annually, an estimated 146 000 Africans die from tobacco-related diseases and the burden costs the health sector 3.5% of annual health expenditure, according to a submission by Dr. Matshidio Moeti, the WHO Regional Director for Africa, during the 2020 World No Tobacco Day on May 31, 2020.
Research proves that as time goes by, tobacco use kills half its consumers!
According to Dr. Moeti, “All forms of tobacco use are harmful and there is no safe level of exposure to second-hand smoke.”
In Kenya, the numbers are alarming, castigated by the fact that Kenya is a major producer of both raw and manufactured tobacco products.
In 2017, Kenya produced almost 9000 tons of leaf, according to 2021 data released by tobacco.tactics.org researchers from the University of Bath.
In 2020, Kenya housed approximately 2.7 million direct smokers, 92% of them being men.
Any efforts?
With lower sensitization efforts to citizens against smoking in Kenya and visible laxity to implement the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the numbers are increasing every day and more deaths are being witnessed.
According to Kenya’s Ministry of health, tobacco use is among the four risk factors burdening the health sector as Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs).
Though preventable, tobacco use features on the list of the top killers in Kenya.
Researchers, including from the WHO, come to a consensus that smoking has no health benefits; every puff draws the smoker closer to the grave.
On nicotine dependence, which is the desire to smoke more nicotine (the chemical in tobacco), Mayo Clinic says that smoking causes cancer (lung cancer and many other types of cancer), stroke, heart and circulatory system diseases, diabetes, tooth and gum disease, infertility and impotence among myriad other complications.
Just quit smoking
Quitting smoking might not be easy, but it is possible.
Health experts have vouched for prevention as the best and most-effective approach.
The benefits of quitting cut across all ages, no matter how long one has been into the habit.
A clear grasp of the benefits of quitting significantly helps smokers, both aged and young, the experienced and the newbies, to stop smoking before it kills them. Quitting smoking:
- Reduces the risk of detrimental health effects: Smokers have a higher risk of developing fatal health complications than non-smokers. With their weakened immune system, they remain prone to such complications as cardiovascular diseases, cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD). Quitting reduces these complications substantially.
- Reduces risk of premature death by up to 10 years: Kicking the smoking and other tobacco-use habits enables you to recover the many years you would have otherwise lost to ‘the puff’, according to research. An earlier quitting, especially before the age of forty, is said to reduce smoking-related deaths by about 90%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The earlier the quitting, the higher the recovery your body will afford and the greater the benefits.
- Lowers the probability of developing 12 types of known tobacco-induced cancers: When you stop using tobacco, either through chewing, inhaling, or smoking, you put possible cancerous diseases at bay. Such include lung cancer, cancer of the bladder, kidneys, cervix, liver, esophagus and stomach, among other possible cancer complications less developed by non-tobacco users.
- Alleviates withdrawal symptoms: Putting a full stop to your smoking habits will enable the body to gradually deplete all nicotine from the blood system. The nervous system relearns how to work without the nicotine drive. Within a few weeks, the headache, tobacco cravings, insomnia and fatigue experienced by many during the recovery process fades off and the sensation passes.
- Improved lung function: Smoking cessation allows your lungs to immediately activate the healing process. Carbon monoxide leaves the bloodstream and the lining of the airways, which had inflamed due to smoke, and start recovering. The lungs’ cilia (the petite hair-like structures for pushing bacteria and mucus to the back of the throat) also get reactivated, helping the body chuck out mucus and clear the lungs, according to the Orlando Health website.
- Offloads the disease burden from caregivers: You may think that smoking is all about you. However, the effects affect both you, those around you and the health system. Financing treatment for cancer, lung complications and other smoking-related illnesses loads the caregivers and crushes the health system, which would have focused on other sicknesses which are either less or unpreventable. Quitting takes away the possibility of being confronted with a heavy toll on your health and financial stress.
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Multitudes keep on trying to evade the desire to smoke. Some succeed and others continue struggling. If you are in the battle, these steps, coupled with others, would help you win:
- Purpose to stop: Every decision matures because of a consistent purpose and determination to achieve it. As the victim fighting your habits, purposing to quit and focusing on the benefits can program your mind to adapt to the decision and weaken the desire to smoke or use tobacco. This technique can also help you put to bay all other unbecoming habits you may be battling.
- Avoid triggers: Avoid all areas which can expose you to smoking. The cravings have been known to be more compulsive when in areas or when doing what you used to do while smoking. Identify your triggers and strategize on how to sit above them without smoking.
- Delay: Learn to delay the urge by stealing more time whenever the urge strikes. Keep yourself busy and get better ways of getting engaged.
- Resist the desire to have ‘just one’: Do not take along that single cigarette you feel like carrying. That “just one” gives you a license to take the puff and buy “another one”, crippling the quitting process.
- Get physical: Having a walk, going along to check up on a friend, jogging, or applying yourself to doing other healthy physical activities would keep your mind engaged and reduce the cravings for the ‘smoke’.
The Kenyan government owns the mandate to combat the looming menace by reducing tobacco products uptake. In turn, this would alleviate the escalating tobacco-induced disease burden bedeviling Kenya’s health system.
It should be vibrant in implementing the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which it adopted in 2004 but has not been into effective implementation.
It would prove beneficial if Kenya would join Burundi, Chad, Burkina Faso, Uganda and the other few African countries which have implemented the WHO Framework and achieved a comprehensive tobacco ban.
Addressing Africans and the African leaders, health experts and activists, Dr. Moeti, the WHO Regional Director for Africa called for action from all spheres of the African populace, a message which is still speaking to every ear today.
“I encourage youth groups to build a movement for a tobacco-free generation. …I call upon parents, caregivers and teachers to educate the children on the harms of tobacco products use and advocate for 100% smoke-free public places and banning all forms of tobacco advertising,” she urged.
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The young people should be keen enough not to be carried by the wave of smoking and realize that it is not fun but fatal; every puff is a step closer to their graves. It remains clear that quitting smoking and other tobacco use habits would save your life and that of your family and friends, who risk smoking-related complications from passive smoking.
