The use of tobacco products increases the incidence of heart disease, stroke and lungs, mouth and stomach caners, this was stated by renowned Psychiatrist Dr. Syed Mubeen Akhtar while addressing a press briefing on the eve of World Anti-Tobacco Day held recently at Karachi Press Club (KPC).
Dr. S. Mubeen Akhter said out of a total 6440 million world population about 1200 million people smoke cigarettes with cost of about 5000 million rupees. Tobacco including Shisha is injurious for health and cause of many illnesses like; heart, chest disease, mouth cancer, throat tongue, stomach, teeth and some sexual disorders. He said these diseases can be simply prevented by quitting tobacco products.
He said that the habit of cigarette smoking and chewing of tobacco with betel leaf is more in the developing countries including Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and India. He said trend of tobacco use is increasing day by day and young generation is the prime target. He pointed out that the tendency of cigarette smoking is much less in countries with higher literacy rate. He said according to the teaching of Islam taking any substance that harm the mind or body is a sin and some scholars consider tobacco completely prohibited, while all are unanimous in declaring it a sin. He informed that tobacco products are made entirely or partly with leaf tobacco as raw material, which are intended to be smoked, sucked, chewed or snuffed and all contain the highly addictive psychoactive ingredient and nicotine.
He said six most effective policies that can curb the tobacco epidemic are outlined in World Health Organization(WHO) MPOWER strategy; monitoring tobacco use and prevention, protecting people from tobacco smoke, offering help to quit tobacco use, warning people about the dangers of tobacco and raising taxes on tobacco products. He urged the electronic and print media, government and health organizations to play their due role to inform people about the dangers of tobacco products. He said use of medicines and treatments by method of hypnosis and psychotherapy are very useful.
