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Although the fight with them has been going on for years, it still does not bring the expected results. According to the Ministry of Health, smoking is today the main risk factor for the health of Polish women and Poles. In the last 10 years, however, the number of smokers in Poland has been decreasing very slowly. Today nearly 8 million of us smoke. Educational campaigns are not helping, and cigarette sales are growing rapidly. In the EU, the affordability of cigarettes has increased in recent years in only a few countries – including Poland. The health of smokers suffers, but also of people exposed to inhaling their poisonous smoke. – We need to start a more radical fight with cigarettes – says Tomasz Latos, chairman of the Parliamentary Health Committee.
- Regulations that were supposed to discourage Poles from smoking are not bringing the expected results
- Despite many appeals and educational campaigns, cigarette sales continue to grow
- Therefore, according to the chairman of the Sejm Health Committee, MP Tomasz Latos, the time has come to bring heavier acts against cigarettes. What changes does it propose?
- More information can be found on the Onet homepage
There are fewer smokers, but the pace is very slow
In 2010, the anti-smoking act was passed, which was aimed at taking care of the health of Poles by effectively discouraging them from smoking. The goal was noble, because cigarette smoke poisons not only smokers but also bystanders. The Polish League for Fighting Cancer estimates that up to 14 million non-smokers may be exposed to such smoke. Doctors today emphasize emphatically that the so-called Passive smoking, i.e. inhaling the smoke from a cigarette that someone smokes next to us, is very dangerous to health. So much so that non-smokers who have inhaled such smoke can also develop serious diseases, including even lung cancer. Although nicotine is commonly attributed to the greatest threat, scientific research contradicts this view. The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies nicotine as highly addictive, but no longer carcinogenic. The biggest problem is the process of burning tobacco in a cigarette itself. Basically what it does – which is smoke. It is cigarette smoke, or more precisely: the toxic and carcinogenic compounds floating in it pose the greatest threat to the life and health of smokers.
The introduction of the law did have some effect, but from the public health perspective, it was far below expectations. Year by year, the percentage of Poles who use cigarettes is decreasing, but too slowly to speak of the success of the program. Therefore, according to the chairman of the Sejm Health Committee, MP Tomasz Latos, the time has come to bring heavier acts against cigarettes.
According to the research conducted by CBOS and Eurostat, one quarter of Poles are currently among the group of smokers. Most of them smoke cigarettes regularly.
Men (32%) smoke more often than women (20%). The average age of Polish smokers ranges from 40 to 54 years of age.
You have to fight with cigarettes more radically
Among the possible methods discouraging Poles from reaching for the “bubble”, the MP mentions, inter alia, higher prices, making cigarettes a luxury commodity for many.
Price is, of course, one way to combat the addiction of smoking, but not the only one. We should make the price of cigarettes higher, but at the same time educate and introduce further restrictions – Tomasz Latos said in an interview with the Newseria Biznes agency.
According to the deputy, education could include, inter alia, involvement of celebrities in the process of discouraging Poles from a harmful addiction.
I think you need to set a good example, carry out actions with celebrities and athletes who will explain why you should not smoke. It seemed a while ago that we were done with this fashion. Please note that cigarette smoking was once quite common in the movies. Today it is an absolute rarity, but you can see it is still not enough – says Latos.
The life of a smoker in Poland may soon become more difficult than before. However, it should be remembered that health is at stake here. The person concerned, his family members, neighbors or co-workers. People who have not worked consciously for diseases related to smoking for years.
We need to start fighting more radically with traditional cigarettes. Unfortunately, this problem still exists. We adopted a very good law several years ago, but in my opinion, another step must be taken. You have to think about what more can be done, because the statistics are still disturbing.
The fight with cigarettes is not easy and if there was one simple mechanism, it would probably have been used a long time ago. But it is necessary to show in which direction the life of a person with addiction will go and what is the alternative. It’s better air, better breathing, better health – that’s what we should talk about. For those who cannot get rid of nicotine completely, there must be alternatives that are less harmful, as in the case of drug addicts – emphasized the MP.
Drop it or die? There is a better alternative
Today, the world goes two ways when it comes to smoking. The first, more radical one, assumes that the smoker can either completely give up the addiction or suffer its health consequences. In practice, however, methods of fighting addiction often fail. A discouraged smoker, even if he is worried about his health, cannot cope with the addiction and simply returns to it. There is a different path for such people. It is about the “harm reduction” path, used in some highly developed countries, such as the United Kingdom, the United States and Japan. In Poland, it is used in the area of combating drugs and alcohol addiction.
This path assumes that when the available methods of fighting addiction fail and the smoker continues to smoke, he can be offered a different nicotine product that will not be so toxic to his body. There are several products at stake, such as nicotine sachets, e-cigarettes or tobacco heaters. They all have one thing in common: they release nicotine without burning tobacco or producing smoke.
These solutions allow the smoker to deliver nicotine other than by smoking a cigarette. As a result of heating a nicotine liquid (e-cigarette) or a specially prepared tobacco cartridge (tobacco heaters), tar substances that are carcinogenic do not get into the user’s respiratory system.