As the month of May ends and we welcome winter and youth month officially in June, we have to end the month on an awareness note.

May 31 is World No Tobacco Day. This day is celebrated globally and was declared by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

According to WHO, the purpose was to raise awareness of how tobacco threatens the development of tobacco globally and pleads that governments take a stand and implement strong control measures for tobacco.

This year’s theme for the day is “Tobacco- a threat to development”, which basically echoes the above-mentioned ideologies of the day.

According to statistics on the WHO website, 226 million adult tobacco users live in poverty; in third world countries, 10% of their household income is spent on tobacco products.

That means it causes a domino effect on the rest of the household expenses such as healthcare, food, and education.

“Besides the obvious detrimental effects on a user’s health, the use of tobacco also affects the environment in the sense that when you throw that cigarette butt on the ground, it contains just over 7000 toxic chemicals,” according to WHO.

Before you start puffing away in your car to end up throwing the cigarette butt out the window or on the floor, think of the implications of the damage the single butt is doing.

Celebrate with the world and WHO by saying no to tobacco today. You may not see a change, but one less cigarette could make a difference to your health and the world.

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