Big tobacco: New report highlights smoking hazards

Experts discuss ways to mitigate use of tobacco in society

ISLAMABAD: In a newly launched report titled ‘Smoky Truth’, TheNetwork of Consumer Protection (NCP) illustrates how the country’s tobacco industry has carved itself room to maneuver. It also shows how practices such as corporate social responsibility can mislead consumers into believing that tobacco is harmless.

The report was formally launched at an event hosted by the network at the Islamabad Hotel on Thursday in the presence of human rights activists, politicians, policymakers, health professionals, lawyers and academics.

NCP Project Coordinator Dr Maria Ahmed Qureshi said “Tobacco control not only signifies stopping the sale of cigarettes, but stopping underage smoking and secondhand smoking as well.”

Dr Muhammad Faheem, head of oncology at Nuclear Medicine, Oncology and Radiotherapy Institute, gave a presentation on how smoking is a silent killer. “While smoking may start as a glamorous act, it ends in disaster,” he said, adding that smoking causes six million deaths every year. “We need to stop prevalent influences such as peer pressure and tobacco advertisements,” Faheem added.

Dr Faisal Sultan, renowned oncologist and head of Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital, said it is no surprise that smoking causes lung cancer. “As an oncologist, I have to admit that treating lung cancer is extremely hard unless it is detected at a very preliminary stage”. Underscoring the hazards of smoking, he added that lung cancer is the most prevalent kind of cancer among men in Pakistan.

“Awareness exists, and the public is aware of the hazards of smoking. It is the enforcement that needs to be done”, said NCP CEO Nadeem Iqbal, adding that tobacco companies should not be allowed to advertise and promote their products, and that the government should impose heavy taxes on them.

In an attempt to further elaborate the perils of habitual smoking, two lung cancer patients, Muhammad Ziakat, 31, and Feroz Din, 55, spoke at the event about their illness and its causes.

Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences head Dr Javed Akram said smoking should be discouraged at every forum, and requested the government to come forward with a strong regulatory framework in this regard.

Rights activist Nasreen Azhar also condemned smoking, saying she herself was a victim of passive smoking.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 23^rd, 2015.