A couple of weeks ago, I had the great honour to represent EFA at the biggest international conference on tobacco control. Supported by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the 16th edition of the World Conference on Tobacco or Health (WCTOH) brought together more than 3,000 delegates from all around the world advocating for a planet free from the diseases caused by tobacco.
Among our network of European patients living with allergy, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), there are passionate people that have been active in the field of tobacco control for ages or even decades. I think that their experience and their continuous efforts to fight tobacco and advocate for stricter policies are admirable, but in Europe we are still falling behind in our goal to protect people, and especially the most vulnerable groups, from the risks associated with exposure to secondhand smoke.
In this framework, I was invited to present patients’ views on our right not be exposed to secondhand smoke in the symposium “Smokefree environments from the human rights perspective” that was organised by our partner the European Network for Smoking and Tobacco Prevention (ENSP). Approaching tobacco control policies from the human rights perspective is already in used in the United States and other parts of the world, but still not in Europe. The session was therefore more than necessary to soften the discourse tobacco defenders are increasingly using with their right to freedom of choice.
In my presentation, I underlined that the freedom of choice includes the responsibility not to harm others. As there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke and ventilation or other systems, such as allowing separate rooms for smokers and non-smokers, are not effective to protect people, I suggested that smokefree environments are the only solution to defend the common interest first.
We all know that tobacco is harmful, but did you know that every six seconds someone somewhere in the world dies because of it? This dramatic situation is even more evident in Europe as, although it accounts only for 15% of the world population, we have the sad Guinness record of the highest smoking rate and the highest burden of the disease attributable to tobacco in the world.
Since the landmark report of the US General Surgeon in 1964 classifying nicotine as a highly addicted substance, tobacco consumption has steadily increased. According to the fifth edition of the Tobacco Atlas, that was launched at the conference and to whom EFA has proudly contributed, only in 2014, the world population smoked 5.8 trillion cigarettes. Tobacco consumption accounts for one in 10 adult deaths worldwide.
New data show us that two out of three of today’s smokers will eventually die of a tobacco-related disease. Unless urgent action is taken, the annual death toll could rise to more than 8 million by 2030.
This is why all countries need to adopt drastic policies to control tobacco and make tobacco deaths something of the past. At EFA, we endorse the WCTOH final declaration with recommendations for future tobacco control policies and especially the calls to implement the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, to include tobacco control indicators in the post-2015 sustainable development goals, and to adopt plain packaging and smokefree environments legislations everywhere in the world.
The European Union has advanced on tobacco control thanks to the 2014 Tobacco Products Directive, but more needs to be done. I hope that all European countries will soon follow the example of Ireland and United Kingdom and introduce plain packaging. From our side, we will encourage the European Commission to propose new legislation on smokefree workplaces to protect all workers, irrespective of their area of work.
The right to breathe clean air is a universal human right and we hope that by 2018, when the next world conference will take place in South Africa, the burden of the disease and the death toll cause by tobacco use worldwide will be drastically reduced.
Roberta Savli is EFA EU Senior Policy Advisor
{jcomments on}