On Saturday, May 31, 2014, Partnerships in Health in close collaboration with the Institute for Public Health and youth non-governmental organization Y-Peer observed the international World No Tobacco Day.
On this occasion, we distributed a several thousand pieces of materials related to educating the general population on negative consequences of smoking, the Law on Prevention of Advertising and Promotion of Tobacco and Tobacco Products, the risks of passive smoking, as well as a leaflet “Youth and Tobacco”.
Tobacco is the second leading cause of death in the world. It is estimated that a half of today’s smokers (about 650 million) will likely die of some consequences of smoking. Equally concerning is the fact that hundreds of thousands of people who never smoked died from diseases caused by passive inhaling of smoke from their surrounding (passive smoking).
This alone should be enough for health care systems around the world direct their energy to preventively educating the population about the risks of smoking, so they can make a timely decision to not smoke, or quit consuming tobacco products in order to protect their health and the health of people who live and work around them.
Harmful consequences of tobacco are rather well known in medicine – tobacco smoke contains over 4000 chemical substances, the main ones being nitrogen, oxygen, nicotine, carbon monoxide, metals (cadmium, arsenic, lead) and hydrogen cyanide. One of the most harmful of them is nicotine, which causes addiction.
Partnerships in Health once again confirms its dedication to the health of all people, and continues its efforts in improvement of health conditions in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
ST
