Of all the words that will be written and spoken on World No Tobacco Day, perhaps none will prove as influential and lasting as several thousand that appeared four weeks ago in The Lancet.
In what I believe is a landmark work, an international team led by Prof. Majid Ezzati examined the roles of the six leading risk factors in achieving the world’s targets for reducing mortality from the four major non-communicable diseases.
The study found that smoking reduction is one of the two most effective strategies for saving lives. Accordingly, it called for raising the global target for smoking reduction from 30% to 50%.
Such an increase, the research team concluded, can avoid millions of premature deaths globally. And it is feasible. Their recommendation could, and should, be a historic conversation-changer. It challenges the world to take note and take action.
The Union supports this strategy and will work towards making it become a reality. We are reminded anew by Dr. Ezzati and his team of the urgency of this work.
On World No Tobacco Day, we confront this urgency even as we take note of our progress.
That progress is substantial, as WHO noted in its 2013 Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic. More than 2.3 billion people, one third of the world’s total population, are now protected by one or more of the six demand reduction measures known as MPOWER. That is double the number of people protected, and governments providing that protection, since MPOWER was introduced in 2008. Most of this progress has taken place in low-and middle-income countries.
Creation of smokefree public and workplace environments, access to cessation services, strong package warning labels, national mass media campaigns, advertising and promotion bans and tax increases have all become more prevalent since 2008. These successes demonstrate conclusively that countries can reduce demand and save lives.
However, as WHO pointed out, the rates of those increases vary greatly among these strategies, and in some cases progress has slowed in recent years. And much of the progress has occurred in countries with smaller populations.
In other words much remains to be done, and the challenge is as formidable as ever. Significant gaps in protection remain all over the world. More than half the world’s countries have yet to fully implement even one of the six MPOWER strategies. We at The Union, and our partners all over the world, must redouble our commitment and our efforts towards achievement of these goals.
This year, the focus of World No Tobacco Day is on raising taxes on tobacco products to levels that will reduce consumption. A tax increase of just ten percent will decrease tobacco use by four percent in high-income countries, and up to eight percent in most low-and middle-income countries.
The Union supports this focus on tax increases, and the ultimate goal of World No Tobacco Day: to protect present and future generations from the vast health, social, environmental and economic toll that tobacco inflicts upon the world.
We at The Union remain steadfast in our commitment to encourage, support and assist the world’s countries in protecting their people from tobacco. It is another important way in which we pursue our mission of providing health solutions for the poor.
José Luis Castro
Executive Director
The Union
31 May 2014