The poor are the biggest victims of the tobacco industry, spending the money they desperately need for necessities on something that endangers their health, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned.
In a report released ahead of World No Tobacco Day on May 31, the WHO said studies found that the poor tend to smoke the most. Of the estimated 1,3-billion smokers worldwide, 84% live in developing countries.
Even in developed countries, it is the lower classes who consume the most tobacco and who bear most of the economic and health burden of smoking, the report entitled A Vicious Cycle said.
It cited a study showing that the highest rate of smoking prevalence in Madras, India was found among illiterate men while another study found that the poorest households in Bangladesh spend almost 10 times more on tobacco than they do on education.
A study in three provinces in Vietnam found that smokers spend 3,6 times more on tobacco than they do on education, 2,5 times more than they do on clothes and 1,9 times more than they spend on health care.
Poor rural households in southwest China spend over 11% of their total expenditure on cigarettes while in Indonesia, the lowest income group spends 15% of total expenditure on tobacco, the WHO added.
While growing tobacco is suppose to help farmers, the WHO charged that small-scale tobacco farmers were barely making a living and that tobacco cultivation placed workers at risk of injury and illness.
It cited the danger of green tobacco sickness: the absorption of nicotine through the skin from wet tobacco leaves, causing nausea, vomitting and even fluctuations in blood pressure and heart rates.
The use of pesticides to protect tobacco plants also brought illnesses to growers, the WHO said.
It charged that tobacco companies often operate on a contract system where they provide seeds and agricultural inputs to farmers who are then obliged to sell their produce at set prices. This leaves farmers helpless and they are forced to accept whatever prices are offered to them.
Even the countries that grow tobacco are harmed more than they are helped by the product due to high health care costs and lowered productivity, the WHO said.
It warned that China suffered $6,5-billion a year in direct and indirect costs of smoking and said that this figure was ”sure to skyrocket,” with an estimated three million people in China expected to die from smoking by the middle of this century.
Tobacco imports resulted in foreign exchange losses for many countries and the cultivation of tobacco — including the burning of wood to cure tobacco, resulted in the deforestation of 200 000 hectares of woodlands each year, the WHO charged.
The WHO argued that if tobacco consumption ceased, people could spend money on more useful things. The slowdown on the industry would also have minimal harmful effects on farming and labour.
The organisation endorsed stronger controls on the tobacco industry, saying that ”tobacco control, rather than being a luxury that only rich nations can afford, is now a necessity that all countries must address.” – Sapa-AFP