Tobacco and Poverty

Source from:  HealthNewsDigest.com  06/04/2004

World No-Tobacco Day, held every May 31, emphasizes a hidden facet of the problem this year: tobacco and its links to poverty. "The campaign that the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is carrying out in this framework has as its purpose informing lawmakers, officials and journalists in the region about the enormous social and economic costs of tobacco use," said Dr. Mirta Roses, director of the Organization. In the form of a pack of cigarettes, that actually contains "unfiltered truths," the Organization notes various economic effects of tobacco. Some of these are: Tobacco depletes world economic resources at a rate of 200 billion dollars per year, according to the World Bank. The taxes from tobacco revenues do not compensate for these costs. In high-income countries, health care costs to treat diseases caused by tobacco constitute between 6 percent and 15 percent of all health expenditures. In Chile, for example, adequate treatment of all cases of lung cancer caused by tobacco would represent 6 percent of health expenditures. Every year, the United States loses $82 billion dollars in productivity due to deaths from tobacco, in addition to $76 billion in health care costs. Poor people have a higher probability of smoking than rich people, and poor families spend a higher proportion of their income on tobacco. Smokers have higher probability of missing more days from work, and of dying in their most productive years, leaving their families without a source of income. The nicotine in tobacco leaves and agricultural pesticides damage the health of tobacco farmers, producing vomiting, weakness, irritation of the skin and the eyes, and renal and respiratory damages. In Brazil, 48 percent of relatives of tobacco farmers suffer from diseases related to pesticides. Another impact on the economy is related to the environment environment. In 1995, the world tobacco industry produced some 2 billion kilograms of waste and 209 million kilograms of chemical residues. Many pesticides used to cultivate tobacco have toxic substances that end up in groundwater and in drinking water. According to the report Tobacco and poverty: a vicious cycle, by the World Health Organization, "Tobacco contributes to poverty through loss of income, loss of productivity, disease and death. Together, tobacco and poverty form a vicious cycle which is often difficult to escape." On May 21, 2003, the 192 Member States of WHO took a historic step when they unanimously adopted a Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the first global treaty on a public health subject, and the first legal instrument designed to reduce death and disease related to tobacco throughout the world. Among other things, the countries that ratify the convention agree to regulate cigarette packaging , publicity and the price of cigarettes, and to protect people from secondhand smoke To date, 20 countries from the Americas have signed the agreement, which will become definitive when 40 countries ratify it. "This world day is an opportunity to promote the signing and ratification of the agreement, and to point out its value as tool to reduce the use of tobacco," Roses said. The economic arguments can be used to respond to many of the doubts among governments, and to misleading strategies of the tobacco companies. According to Roses, it is very important to clarify economic myths around tobacco control, which are promoted by multinational tobacco companies, in order to reduce tobacco consumption. In the world there are 1.3 billion smokers, of which 84 percent live in developing countries with economies in transition. Tobacco causes 13,500 deaths daily. At the global level, 47.5 percent of men and 10.3 percent of women are smokers. In the Americas, the highest consumption rates are registered in the countries of the Southern Cone, particularly in Argentina and Chile, where about 45 percent of men and 35 percent of women smoke. Enditem