The theme for this year’s World No Tobacco Day, observed globally on 31 May, is how to protect the world’s younger generations from using tobacco products of all types – focusing on protecting them from being manipulated by tobacco companies, which has increasingly target young people.
This an important issue and a challenge to tobacco policymakers in every country.
According to Dr Ahmad Al Mulla, Head of the HMC Tobacco Control Center, when a person starts to smoke before the age of 20, they are more vulnerable to addiction. He said the brain and body of a young person are still developing, weakening their ability to benefit from smoking cessation treatment, then or in the future. He said that it’s important to help young people maintain their health and reject tobacco addiction by raising awareness of the problem, enforcing strict tobacco control laws that protect them from using tobacco products of all types.
Throughout the year, the Tobacco Control Center has organised activities in support of World No Tobacco Day, including field awareness events in several preparatory and secondary schools – held before schools closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr Al Mulla said that these activities are continuing through media awareness campaign.
We have also taken this time to highlight the link between smoking and severe COVID-19 illness, and these activities will continue to intensify during the coming months.
Dr Al Mulla also called on the concerned authorities to effectively implement law No 10 of 2016 to combat smoking in the State of Qatar, which includes a number of sanctions designed to protect young people from using tobacco products – prohibiting the sale of tobacco products to anyone under the age of 18 years old, preventing the sale of tobacco products near schools and universities and banning the sale of different smoking products such as sweika, medwakh, and e-cigarette.
World No Tobacco Day 2020
The HMC Tobacco Control Center is participating in global events today, in observance of the World No Tobacco Day, including participating in an online seminar organised by the World Health Organization (WHO) and other global organisations working in the field of smoking cessation. The seminar will be an opportunity to discuss how participating countries can continue working together to promote smoking cessation and implement future measures to protect current and future generations from being manipulated and attracted to tobacco products.
There are multiple methods and techniques used by the tobacco industry to entice young people to smoke, including adding different flavours to tobacco products and misleading young people.
All of these tricks are obvious, but many young people are unaware of just how dangerous smoking is and of the risks of smoking. However, thanks to global efforts, we have seen a decrease in smoking rates among young people in recent years.
Dr Al Mulla is calling on all smokers to take advantage of the services provided by the HMC Tobacco Control Center, which include therapeutic counseling, medication therapy, behavioural therapy, and laser therapy to help smokers permanently give up smoking.
For more information on the HMC Tobacco Control Center, call 5080 0959 or visit hamad.qa.