VALD Holds Workshop On Tobacco-Use Control
Von cigarettesonline1, 24.10.2012, 15:46
The Vision for Alternative Development (VALD) has called on the media to help propagate the dangers involved in the use of tobacco. Speaking at a media workshop in Accra, yesterday, the Executive Director for VALD, Mr Issah Ali, disclosed that one out of every ten adults, worldwide, died from the intake of tobacco.
The workshop was organised by VALD, in collaboration with the Corporate Accountability International, on the topic ‘The tobacco industry— threats to public health’. Mr Ali said death from tobacco use deprived families, bread winners and nations of a healthy workforce, not to mention the high public health cost of treating tobacco-caused diseases.
In a presentation on the World Health Organisation’s (WHO’s) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control(FCTC), Mr Ali said the objective of the FCTC was to protect present and future generations from the devastating health, social, environmental and economic consequences of tobacco consumption and exposure to tobacco smoke. According to Mr Ali, the FCTC obligated every country to develop, implement, periodically update and review comprehensive multi-sectoral national tobacco control strategies, plans and programmes.
He was of the view that government should increase the price and tax on tobacco importation into the country and that there should always be graphic health warnings attached to the packaging and labelling of tobacco products so as to reduce the high demand for tobacco. The Programmes Director for VALD, Mr Labram Musah Massawudu, noted that most of the activities of tobacco smokers posed a great threat not only to the smokers but also to those around them as they also inhaled the smoke.
“The challenges involved in preventing tobacco use will be minimised if we can eliminate activities of the tobacco industry through the passage of the tobacco control bill into law,” he indicated. Mr Masawudu noted that government had taken steps to implement the FCTC through the Ministry for Health’s Tobacco Control Directives of 2007 while the tobacco control bill had passed through the due process.
Mr Masawudu expressed the hope that the Public Health Bill would be finally passed into law to help make their work easier as well as help save more lives.
