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The Zambia Heart & Stroke Foundation (ZAHESFO) has called on government to quickly enact the Tobacco Control Bill as one of the interventions to curb consumption of the product.
ZAHESFO Communication Director, Simon Mwanza, said the foundation was concerned over the ever-rising levels of tobacco consumption in Zambia now claiming 20 lives daily from tobacco related diseases.
Mwanza in a statement on Sunday expressed optimism that enacting the Tobacco Control Bill would deal with the vice.
“This situation has been exacerbated by the tobacco industry that has targeted the youth, the future generation of our nation who it has exposed to the e-cigarette loaded with highly poisonous nicotine.
“It is for this reason that ZAHESFO and other concerned parties especially the civil society have joined hands calling on government to quickly enact the Tobacco Control Bill to stop this killer crop,” he said.
Mwanza observed that while tobacco consumption had considerably dropped in the first world, it was regrettably fast rising in Africa rated the highest smoking continent in the world at 4.7 percent.
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He therefore appeals to government to also consider introducing Anti-Tobacco Clubs (ATCs) in primary and secondary schools so that pupils learn the dangers of tobacco at early ages.
He cited extremist cancers, arterial, stroke, cardio vascular and gangrenes killing eight million people globally each year as some of the notable killer diseases from tobacco consumption.
Mwanza indicated that the industry had targeted the low- and middle-income countries such as Zambia to ply its business, ignoring the health challenges it generated for its unsuspecting consumers.
“We therefore must quickly find ways of stopping the industry in its track and the Tobacco Control Bill is one such tool to employ in this tobacco war. The tobacco industry must be told in no uncertain terms that tobacco diseases are not just a consequence of poverty, they are also a cause of poverty.
“The industry knows fully that conversely; improved health is a driver of economic growth and a way out of the current grinding poverty in Zambia. The huge tragedy is that the industry has long history of undermining public health policies like it is happening in Zambia,” he said.
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