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TOBACCO: THE WORLD’S GREATEST WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION

By John Seffrin, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer, American Cancer Society, and President, International Union Against Cancer

 

Question: What is the most effective weapon of mass destruction ever produced and used by mankind?

 

Did you answer nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons?  Wrong.  Until they’re used on a mass scale (and let’s pray they never will be), the answer is…the cigarette.

 

Yes, the little cigarette – promising to keep you, as one ad says, “Alive with Pleasure!” – is the most effective killing machine mankind has ever invented and actually used all around the world.

 

As we mark the American Cancer Society’s annual Great American Smokeout^® on Nov. 21, the United States must now turn its attention to the growing threat that tobacco has become around the world.  A pandemic of tobacco-related death and disease is about to engulf the globe unless we take action now.

 

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 500 million people alive today in the world – including 250 million children – will eventually be killed by tobacco-related disease, far more than any other man-made cause of death, including war.  A recent study conducted by WHO and the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that one in seven young people aged 13-15 around the world smoke cigarettes, with nearly a quarter of them having tried their first cigarette by age 10.  About 80,000-100,000 children and adolescents become addicted to tobacco each day around the world.

 

            Because the world is doing a better job of preventing communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases – like the cancers and heart disease caused by smoking – are taking over as the leading threat to health.  If current trends continue, tobacco will be the no. 1 cause of premature death worldwide by the year 2025. 

 

We can fight back.  In America, tobacco is already the No. 1 cause of premature death, but smoking rates are declining.

 

That’s why the tobacco industry has been pointing its marketing guns at other nations, particularly poor, developing nations, which have few resources to help their citizens avoid tobacco use.  About 70 percent of all deaths from tobacco will occur in the developing countries by 2025, up from around 50 percent today.  The pitiless tobacco industry will pick on those who have the least ability to fight back.

 

           

            Where exactly will the pandemic strike?  Research led by WHO’s Alan Lopez predicts that Sub-Saharan Africa, China, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and North Africa are all poised to experience devastating increases in tobacco-related deaths. In the industrialized world, Japan will be hit hard.

 

            Should the United States care?  Very much so.  Soaring rates of tobacco-related death and disease can cripple economic, social, and political development, particularly in emerging nations.  Tobacco very often kills adults in middle age – at the very time they’re ready to make their greatest contributions to their families and communities.  In this way, tobacco helps to unravel the social fabric, and that could undermine efforts to promote stability, democracy, and security throughout the world.

 

            What can be done?  The first and most important step is to hammer out a Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) that has real teeth.  The FCTC, being worked out under the auspices of WHO, would be the world’s first treaty to reduce tobacco-related death and disease and offers the best hope for rolling back the tide of tobacco.  The treaty’s success, however, depends on the support it receives from WHO’s member nations, including the United States.  The American Cancer Society has called upon the United States to support such key treaty provisions as reducing youth smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke. 

 

The United States is a major tobacco-exporting nation, and in the past we have let concern for the profits of tobacco companies outweigh concern for the health of the world.  The political clout of the tobacco industry’s campaign contributions play a role, too – the industry spends $1 million to lobby Congress each day Congress meets.  We must not allow these influences to shape our current positions in the treaty negotiations.  The consequences are simply too great.

 

The American Cancer Society is doing its share to slow down the worldwide tobacco death machine.  As part of our new international cancer prevention initiative, we have joined with the International Union Against Cancer (UICC) and others to launch a major new effort to train and support new anti-tobacco leaders in developing countries.  These leaders will fight for needed policy changes, such as curtailing marketing aimed at kids and increasing tobacco sales taxes, which reduces consumption.

 

If we can cut adult tobacco consumption in half by the year 2020, we can save nearly 200 million lives over the next 50 years.  If we don’t, the world will experience the greatest avoidable loss of health – and life – in recorded history.

 

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