© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Cigarette butts are seen in an ashtray, in Ankara, Turkey Could 13, 2023. REUTERS/Yves Herman
LONDON (Reuters) – International progress in insurance policies to scale back tobacco use slowed for the primary time in 12 years following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, based on evaluation revealed on Wednesday by the International Tobacco Management Progress Hub, which warned thousands and thousands of individuals worldwide probably continued to smoke because of this.
The hub, a collaboration between the non-profit Motion on Smoking and Well being (ASH) Canada and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Faculty of Public Well being, tracks the enactment of the World Well being Group’s (WHO) Framework Conference on Tobacco Management, a world treaty aimed toward lowering smoking.
It discovered that between 2020 and 2022, there was a slowdown within the implementation of six of the treaty’s core, high-impact measures, together with tax will increase, promoting and promotion bans and guidelines prohibiting smoking in public locations.
Les Hagen, government director of ASH Canada, mentioned whereas the pandemic understandably distracted governments, the slowdown was “disturbing”, and referred to as on nations to step up their efforts.
He warned the drop-off in implementation may have “dire consequences for millions of people worldwide, especially if sustained”.
The evaluation is predicated on international locations’ self-reporting to the WHO, Hagen mentioned. Two thirds of nations reported both no enchancment or a decline within the implementation of key tobacco insurance policies, whereas just one third reported an enchancment.
The most important declines had been registered in low-income international locations, and significantly within the jap Mediterranean and south east Asian areas, the hub mentioned.
The six key insurance policies have been proven to scale back smoking charges when applied, Hagen mentioned, including that thousands and thousands of people that would in any other case have give up are probably nonetheless smoking because of this.
The WHO says that tobacco kills as much as half of its customers that don’t give up.
A separate report from STOP, a community of educational and public well being organisations, and the International Heart for Good Governance in Tobacco Management, revealed final week additionally discovered a deterioration in governments’ implementation of one other facet of the WHO treaty aimed toward stopping tobacco business interference in coverage.
(This story has been corrected so as to add a dropped letter from the title John Hopkins Bloomberg Faculty of Public Well being in paragraph 2)
