WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2009

2009-12-14

Only 5,4 percent of the worlds population are protected by comprehensive smoke-free regulations. That is the main message in the WHO-report that gives an overview of the global situation of tobacco-prevention. Only 17 countries in the world have adopted comprehensive smoke-free laws which meets the golden standards of WHO. Sweden is not one of the seventeen since we allow destignated smoking-rooms in restaurants and since we also allow smoking in universities.

"There is no safe level of exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke. Therefore, action is needed by governments to protect their people," sais Dr Ala Alwan, assistant general-director at the WHO department for non-communicable diseases.

The report also gives an overview of all countries’ effort to implement the WHO MPOWER-package, a collection of demand reducing methods meant to help countries’ adopt the regulations and guidelines in the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

The methods are:

• Monitor tobacco use – Make regular national surveys on people’s tobacco-use
• Protect from tobacco smoke – Protect people from tobacco-smoke by adopting 100% smoke-free policies in all public environments
• Offer help to quit – Tobacco-cessation should be easy-accessed and available to all
• Warn about the dangers about tobacco – Text and pictorial health-warnings on tobacco are one good first step
• Enforce bans om tobacco advertising – No tobacco-sponsorship, advertising or promotion should be allowed
• Raise taxes on tobacco – Higher prices on tobacco means less users.

Sweden is given high marks for tobacco use monitoring – the number of tobacco-users can be followed back to 1980 for both youths and adults. On none of the other methods does Sweden accomplish the WHO-standards – which means that measures as banning tobacco point-of-purchase promotion, adopt pictorial health-warnings on tobacco and continuously raise the price on tobacco are even more urgent.

Tobacco use continues to be the leading preventable cause of death, killing more than 5 million people per year. Unless urgent action is taken to control the tobacco epidemic, the annual death toll could rise to 8 million by 2030, the report states. More than 80% of those premature deaths would occur in low- and middle-income countries – in other words, precisely where it is hardest to deflect and to bear such tremendous losses.