July 16: This month 146 members of World Health Organisation agreed to bring a protocol on tobacco trade and is a great effort to improve public and personal health in all over world. In this respect the first attempt was made on May 09, 2003 in the 56 th World Health Assembly when all members had signed a treaty to bring out a legal form controlling tobacco trade and eventually tobacco related deaths.
In a week long conference that held from June 30 and July 06 in Bangkok was participated by all members of the WHO. This WHO Framework Conference on Tobacco Control (FCTC) works with a sole aim to reduce tobacco related deaths and diseases with the use of an internationally accepted legal format that has been accepted by most of the members.
Tobacco use is directly or indirectly acts as a barrier in a nation’s growth pertaining to a threat to national security, public and personal health, and ultimately the economics. Hence it becomes imperative to stop its use and illegal trade of tobacco with the protocol signed by the members.
However, this is possible when it comes into effect in all countries. As the constitution and laws of the land varies form places to places, the conference has also discussed this and made it clear to the participants to come out with common guidelines under which countries can check the use of tobacco if not completely banned.
Today the tobacco manufactures are using diverse media like films, sporting events, fashion to advertise and promote their product in order to attract new users. For this it becomes important for any country to impose certain restriction in terms of packaging, leveling and its sponsorship. It is also necessary to enforce law for making a smoke free environment with the ban of smoking in public places. It can reduce the second-hand tobacco smoking also known as environmental tobacco smoking.
As second-hand tobacco smoking is very common, it affects everyone especially children resulting diseases related to lungs and brain. This is also one of the roots for the rising number of infant mortality. As a result several countries have put restriction on smoking in public places like restaurants, bar, movie halls and all outdoor public areas including railway stations, bus stops, parks, and also inside public transports.
This is a strong effort to preserve the right of individual to maintain a healthy life that is good for the future generation and also the whole world. However, in the whole mission non-government organisations can play a big role in spreading awareness and also in forcing governments to come up with some stringent rules that can be effective in controlling the manufacture of tobacco products and also its illicit cross-border trading.
|
|
Comments:
