US Ban on Smoking Undermined by Tobacco Industry

Grow Food, not Tobacco. Credit: PAHO   On May 31, the World Health Organization (WHO) and public health institutions celebrated “World No Tobacco Day” (WNTD). This year’s theme was: “We need food, not tobacco”. WNTD was created by WHO Member States in 1987 to raise awareness about the harmful effects of tobacco use and exposure to tobacco smokeBy Thalif DeenUNITED NATIONS, Jun 1 2023 (IPS) The US has some of the strictest laws against smoking in public, including a 1997 executive order which bans smoking in all government federal buildings. But still, the tobacco industry and its allies do not rest, says Dr. Jarbas Barbosa, Director of the Washington-based Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Currently, they “spread a lot of misleading information that promotes, especially among young people, the use of e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products”, he said, on the eve of World No Tobacco Day May 31. According to PAHO, while the percentage of the population using tobacco in the Americas declined from 28% to 16.3% between 2000 and 2020, novel products and misleading information from the tobacco industry, especially targeting young people, threaten to undo those gains. “Although eight countries in the region have banned the marketing of e-cigarettes and four of heated tobacco products, we are concerned that 14 countries have not yet taken any regulatory action in this regard,” he pointed out. According to the latest statistics from PAHO, tobacc...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Economy & Trade Featured Global Headlines Health Inequity Latin America & the Caribbean North America Poverty & SDGs IPS UN IPS UN Bureau Report Source Type: news