CISLAC Advocates For Increased Tobacco Taxation To Reduce Diseases, Death

The CISLAC made this call at a one day Media training involving Media Practitioners in Umuahia, Abia State, on Friday, September, 24, 2021.

CISLAC is a non-governmental, non-profit legislative Advocacy, research based organization saddled with responsibility of data sharing on dangers posed by tobacco consumption.

At the training, the NGO noted the dangers associated with tobacco intake, and called on the government and other relevant authorities to increase tobacco taxation as a way of stemming the dangers inherent from constant use of tobacco.

Speaking at the training, CISLAC Programs Manager, Mr. Okeke Anya, revealed that Cigarette, a product of tobacco, contains over 7,000 chemicals, adding that many of the chemicals are lethal and carcinogenic, including: Tar, Ammonia, Methane, Steric Acid, Hydrogen Cyanide, Cadmium, Acetate, Carbo monoxide, Acetic Acid, Hexamine among others.

According to him, chemicals used in the packaging of tobacco, pose great danger to human health. He pointed that increased taxation on tobacco remains the surest and safest way of having healthier people in the society as well as reducing deaths associated with tobacco, especially as the WHO succinctly puts it in its report that 8 million people die annually from tobacco-related ailments just as he maintained that the report contends that the number will increase by 2030 if nothing significant is done to reduce the devastation which tobacco use causes.

Anya while stressing on the need for the media and other concerned Bodies to join forces in exposing the effects of tobacco addiction, stated that to deal with it's harmful effects, Article 6 of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco control (WHO-FCTC) has recommended that tax and price measures are important ways of reducing tobacco prevalence.

On his part, another CISLAC Consultant, Solomon Adoga, harped on the need for media advocacy especially media mix, reiterating that different medium of communication must be deployed and effectively too so as to take the message bothering on the dangers of tobacco to every doorstep.

Adoga expressed optimism that with the efficacy of the media and its pervasive nature (electronic, print and social media), it is possible that calls for increased taxation on tobacco would be heeded by government at all levels, hence the society would be free from tobacco related diseases cum deaths.