On the 5th-7th of April, we were invited to speak at a three-day international conference on tobacco control on research, prevention and treatment organised by our partner the European Network for Smoking and Tobacco Prevention (ENSP).
EFA’s Susanna Palkonen was invited to speak on the involvement of citizens/patients on policy-formulation in the session of NGOs in tobacco control policy, while EFA Senior EU Policy Advisor Roberta Savli chaired a session on influence of research in policy making.
Participants underlined the negative effects of tobacco use and exposure to second-hand smoke. Tobacco is associated with a higher degree of asthma severity, worsening of symptoms, increased hospital admissions, accelerated decline in lung function, limited short-term responses to medicines and poor asthma control. Smoking causes COPD and COPD exacerbations, worsens COPD severity, tobacco smoke is responsible for poorer physical health status and increased dyspnoea. It is also a main factor in provoking allergic reactions by babies in young children. For EFA, patient organisations participation in tobacco policies is key, the patient perspective for example in case of COPD is unique, as their disease is mostly caused by smoking.
To tackle the tobacco epidemic in Europe, participants identified the full implementation of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) to decrease smoking rates. This is the first and only public health international treaty that, as such, is binding to all countries that have ratified it, although not many are aware of it and there are no fines if countries do not implement its measures. The full implementation of the FCTC and the adoption of stricter national and EU legislations are a good step to address tobacco consumption.
The EU tobacco products directive will enter into force on the 20th of May and has the objective of reducing by 2% the number of youth smoking in the next decades.
To know more about the conference, please visit ENSP website.
If you wish to know more about our perspective on smoking, do not miss our Tobacco Control section.