Risks of Tobacco Smoke

NON SMOKERS STAND GREATER RISKS THAN SMOKERS

“Smokers are liable to die young,” so we are always told by the Federal Ministry of Health in every cigarette adverts. But what they have never told and will never tell us is that non-smokers could die even younger. Why? How? You may ask with a face decorated with a cosmetic called surprise. You may not be wrong to ask because we have been brainwashed to believe that it is only smokers that are liable to die young. But recently, it has been discovered that non-smokers stand even greater risks, and could die even younger, than the actual smokers.

A group of researchers in the United States of America recently came out with a stunning discovery that the amount of nicotine that a smoker inhales is only one-fourth of that which he releases into the environment for non-smokers. The study explains that this is due to the fact that the mouth end of the cigarette is fixed with a foam-like material which filters out nicotine and pushes it to the burning end of the cigarette. Here, it is sent out to the environment as smoke. No wonder Prof. Reijula Kura once said that “Smoking is costly; not only to smokers but even more so to non-smokers.”

I once confronted a friend telling him to quit smoking because it endangers his life. “Tell me of one person in this village that died from smoking” was his reaction. That ended the story as I did not have any case study to mention. But according to the British Medical Journal, about half to two-thirds of all persistent smokers eventually are killed by their smoking habit. Richard Carmona, a onetime US Surgeon General, identified the agents of this self destruction to include diseases like pneumonia, leukaemia, cataract, gum disease, cancers of the lungs, kidney, cervix, stomach and pancreas. In fact, toxin from cigarette goes everywhere the blood flows. But are these risks exclusive to smokers alone?

Not at all. Cases abound to prove that passive smokers, second-hand smokers or non-smokers, as they are variously called, are even at greater risks. In Finland, about 250 people die annually from diseases linked to exposure to second-hand smoke. In Greece, the Greek Health Journal reports that 65% of children with breathing problems are due to exposure to tobacco smoke from one or both parents. If a smoker’s life is shortened by five to ten years on average as reported by the Berkeley Wellness Centre, what do you expect of non-smokers who take in as much as four times the level of toxic nicotine than a smoker? Given this situation, what are the world government doing about tobacco sale and consumption?

Instead of stopping the importation, sale and consumption of tobacco products in their territories, most governments are busy making money from tobacco business. The World Health Organization reports that in some countries, tobacco tax revenue are more than 500 times higher than spending on tobacco control. This explains why tobacco business has become a necessary evil to some economies including that of Nigeria, even at the detriment of their human resources.

So whether you smoke or not, you still stand certain risks. In some instances, not smoking is even costlier than smoking itself.