The World Heart
Federation calls on all countries to set a target year to end tobacco use
At the Tobacco
End Game Conference in New Delhi, India this week the
World Heart Federation (WHF) signalled to all countries worldwide to set a
target year to end tobacco use in their country. Ending tobacco use implies
reducing population smoking levels to five percent or below.
Some countries have already taken the lead and have announced
their “target year” to reduce tobacco consumption. These include Finland
(2030), Scotland (2034), New Zealand (2025) as well as a few Pacific Island
States (2025).
The Risks
Previous Blogs, “Raising Awareness for Lung Cancer” and “Smoking – a big turn off” have highlighted the
negative impacts of smoking on health, and the evidence continues to affirm that
tobacco use is one of the main risk factors for heart disease and is the cause of millions of premature deaths
each year worldwide.
Smoking is estimated to cause nearly ten percent of cardiovascular
disease (CVD) and is also the second leading cause
of CVD after high blood pressure. Further more, it is not just smokers who bear
the consequences of tobacco smoke, passive smokers are also placed under unnecessary
risk.
Figures indicate that nearly six
million people die from tobacco use or exposure to
second hand smoke worldwide, every year. By 2030 is it believed that
tobacco-related deaths will increase to over eight million deaths a year.
With strong evidence available to the public on the adverse
effects of smoking and the efforts to promote these facts, the statistics on
tobacco related deaths remain shocking!
Thus, important questions arise about what else we need to be
doing to reduce smoking in adults and prevent children from starting.
Could further changes in
marketing be the answer?
Over the past decades the UK has witnessed some significant
changes to how tobacco is advertised and this began in the early 1990’s but
took greater affect after the millennium.
The 1990 and 1996 Broadcasting Acts prohibited tobacco marketing on
broadcast media (television and radio). However, it was the Tobacco Advertising
and Promotion Act 2002 (TAPA) that banned most forms of tobacco advertising. This
included a ban on print media and billboard advertising (2003) and advertising
at the point of sale (2004).
As the UK is a Party of the Framework Convention for Tobacco
Control (FCTC) they were bound by agreement to implement the framework into
national policy. The drive to improve
population health coupled with the requirement to integrate further
restrictions on tobacco advertising, saw a new national tobacco control
strategy emerge in 2008 by the Labour Government and later reinforced by the
Coalition Government in 2011. The consultation included a ban on the display of
tobacco in shops and a ban on tobacco vending machines (2011) both of which were
included in the Health Bill.
Since April 2012 it has become illegal to display tobacco
products at the point of sale in large stores and this ban will come into force
in smaller stores from 2015. Although in 2010 the Coalition government agreed
to review the evidence for plain packaging as part of its national strategy,
this has still not come into affect, despite pressing evidence that branding of
tobacco packets and higher consumption rates exists. Read the RSPH press release
here on our disappointment of not introducing standardised packaging
on tobacco products.
“Research shows that Point of Sale (PoS) display has a direct impact on
young people’s smoking. In 2006, almost half (46%) of UK teenagers were aware
of tobacco display at PoS and those professing an intention to smoke were more
likely to recall brands that they had seen at the point of sale.”
Tobacco companies invest large amounts of resources in branding
their products and making them appear as attractive as possible. They know that
brand imagery is much more important to younger age groups, thus standardised
packaging would reduce brand appeal and reduce the inclination to smoke.
Next Steps
Clearly, measures have been made to reduce smoking in the UK,
tighter restrictions on tobacco advertisement and the implementation of the
smoking ban in public spaces 2007/2008 have sought to reduce appeal for
smoking. However, there remains more to be done to ensure we are able to align
ourselves with the World Heart Federations’ aim to reduce tobacco use below 5%
and prevent thousands of avoidable deaths a year (in England the current
ambition is to reduce smoking prevalence to 18.5% or less by 2015; to 12% or
less among 15 year olds by 2015).
The World Heart Federation President Professor K Srinath Reddy said:
"There is no hiding from the deadly
effects of tobacco on heart health....There are many countries across all incomes making great strides in
tobacco control and it should be possible for each of these nations to further
bolster their tobacco control efforts by setting themselves a target year for
reducing tobacco use below 5%. So the World Heart Federation would hope to see
these countries, followed by those around the world, following the brave lead
set by the countries that have announced target dates."
Visit RSPH Training
Solutions to see programmes and courses that can give you the
confidence and skills to help people make key lifestyle choices to improve their
health.
For further information on
UK regulations click
here
to read the ASH Briefing: UK Tobacco Control Policy and Expenditure.
For more information on the
negative effects of tobacco use and how to quit please click here and NHS
Choices website.
