KARACHI: Smoking causes around 166,000 deaths every year in Pakistan out of which 31,000 are due to second-hand smoking.

According to the World Health Organization, despite health warnings, cessation campaigns, and increased tobacco control measures, this number isn’t expected to decrease significantly in the coming years. Not only do these combustible cigarettes pose a threat to the human body but also the environment. The WHO report “Tobacco: Poisoning our planet” highlights that the industry’s carbon footprint from production, processing and transporting tobacco is equivalent to one-fifth of the CO2 produced by the commercial airline industry each year, further contributing to global warming. Experts said that while the ultimate goal to eliminate the risks to climate change is to quit smoking altogether, the process can be rather difficult with chances of relapse. Over the years, scientists globally have been working towards producing potentially less harmful alternatives that smokers can shift to as their first step to quit smoking.

They said that countries like Japan, US, UK, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland took it upon themselves to lower these numbers and by legalizing and funding research towards HTPs and adopting Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR) strategies. The results have been very promising as most of these countries saw a sharp decline in the number of smokers and the risks associated with it.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023