Anti-tobacco and health rights campaigners marked World No-To-Tobacco Day yesterday demanding immediate steps to stop tobacco production, reduce consumption and emphasising on strengthening anti-tobacco movements to raise mass awareness about the health hazards.
Anti-tobacco platform Adhunik and World Health Organization (WHO) jointly organised a discussion at the Jatiya Press Club, where speakers demanded strong government monitoring of cigarette-makers who, they say, lure farmers to cultivate tobacco on cropland and hills.
Barrister Tania Amir said tobacco consumers, especially those having limited income, spend a notable portion of their income behind the deadly products. Spending behind tobacco in poor and lower-income countries like Bangladesh is higher than in the developed countries. “Smoking gradually ends their working-capability, and they can’t meet nutritional requirements of their families and afford education expenses of their children.” Voicing concern over growing cultivation of tobacco in Bangladesh, Tania alleged companies were persuading farmers to cultivate tobacco. “It has marked a sharp rise in recent time.”
She refuted the government’s claim that tobacco companies give huge revenue to exchequer, Tania Amir said: “On one hand, it (govt) is taking tax from tobacco companies, on the other hand it pushes people towards death.”
Speaking on the occasion, National Professor Dr MR Khan listed the terrible effects of passive smoking and said many people do not give due importance to the matter.
