Say no to smoking!

Facts:

• The National Health and Morbidity Survey 2006 showed that 21.5% or 2.73 million Malaysians were smokers and 33 million sticks worth RM8.6mil were smoked daily.

• 27 Malaysians die every day due to tobacco related diseases.

• A 10 per cent increase in cigarette prices will result in a 3.8 per cent reduction in the consumption of cigarettes in the long-run if taxes are constantly increased annually.

“A simulation model revealed that an increase in cigarette excise tax from RM1.60 to RM2 per pack in 2006 would increase the average cigarette price by 5.9 per cent and reduce the consumption by 445,737,729 sticks of cigarettes,” said Dr Nabilla.

“This reduced consumption would translate to between 174 and 179 fewer tobacco-related deaths per year.

“At the same time, the government would collect an additional RM437 million in taxes.”

• A 10 per cent increase in real income increases cigarette consumption by 10 per cent.
• Malaysia was also recognised as one of the more mature cigarette markets in Southeast Asia, with sales of about 20 billion sticks per annum.
• “Data from 2005 show that a 20-cigarette pack costs seven per cent of the average daily income of an employee in the manufacturing sector.
• “The addiction to cigarettes diverts scarce resources away from basic family needs, such as education and nutrition.”

• THE national medical bill to treat three major diseases attributed to tobacco — heart attack, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease — comes to well above RM3 billion a year.

According to Health Ministry deputy director-general (Public Health) Datuk Dr Ramlee Rahmat: “The number of deaths and economic losses due to tobacco use exceeds that of the combined total of most infectious diseases including influenza, dengue, malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.”

• About 10,000 people die in Malaysia each year due to tobacco attributed diseases such as cardio-vascular diseases (heart attack, strokes, and complications from gangrene due to peripheral vascular diseases); most cancers (lung, mouth, throat, oesophagus, stomach, pancreas, liver, kidney, bladder and cervix), lung diseases (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and numerous other conditions.

• Complications to common diseases such as hypertension and diabetes are made more severe with the use of tobacco products.

• The National Health and Morbidity Survey 2006 revealed that three million Malaysians were smokers and some 450,000 were aged between 13 and 18 years.

• The survey showed that 46.4 per cent were adult males, 1.6 per cent adult females, 26 per cent adolescent boys and three per cent adolescent girls.

• half of lifetime smokers will succumb to diseases.

• “The present burden of deaths and diseases from smoking is the result of the smoking epidemic that occurred 20 to 30 years ago.

“MY father is my hero and he smokes. He often asks me to buy cigarettes for him.

“I don’t think he would let me do anything dangerous so I don’t think smoking is dangerous at all.”

These were the startling words of a 14-year-old girl from Gombak when asked why she had started smoking.

• One in 10 girls smoked, according to a Universiti Malaya study which looked at over 2,900 students, between the ages of 13 and 16, in Selangor, in 2006.
• The study found that the girls started to experiment with cigarettes as early as the age of nine.
• It also found that one in five adolescents had starting smoking by the age of 15, with the average age of initiation being 11.4 years

• In the last 10 years, tobacco use among adolescent girls had doubled from 4.8 per cent to nine per cent.

• The study, said Dr Nabilla, also found that the odds were three times higher for Malays to start smoking compared with other races.
• Globally, the use of tobacco among women and young girls is on the rise, whereas for men it is on the decline.
• This study found that girls took up smoking because of peer influence, seeing their parents smoke, the misguided belief that it could alleviate stress and that it would impress others.
• Most said the media were not the primary factor that got them started but it was the availability of cigarettes from family and friends.
• “But the more frequently cigarettes appeared in the media, the more they felt it was alright to continue to smoke.”
• Most of them reported that they only smoked outside their homes and their parents were unaware of it.
• The majority of them described themselves as kaki lepak (those who loiter around shopping malls) and late-sleepers on non-school days.
• “They smoke three or four cigarettes a day. A few of them acknowledged they were heavy smokers (a pack of 20 cigarettes a day).
• “Most do know the health risks associated with smoking. The most frequently cited reason for initiation into smoking was peer influence.”

Read more facts from Star articles here and here.