This tradition has existed since 1988, when the World Health Organization declared May XNUMX as World No Tobacco Day. The world community was tasked with making sure that the problem of tobacco smoking disappeared in the XNUMXst century. The XNUMXst century has arrived, but the problem has not disappeared. The fight against nicotine continues.
According to experts, tobacco is the second leading cause of death in the world. It is well known that half of the people who smoke regularly today (approximately six hundred and fifty million people) will eventually be killed by tobacco. Equally alarming is the fact that hundreds of thousands of people who have never smoked in their lives die each year from diseases caused by the inhalation of second-hand smoke.
In Russia, smoking is the most widespread bad habit, where sixty-five percent of men and thirty percent of women currently smoke. Of these, eighty percent of men and fifty percent of women began smoking in adolescence, that is, before the age of eighteen.
Tobacco is the cause of death from lung cancer in ninety percent of all cases, from bronchitis and emphysema in seventy-five percent of all cases, and from heart disease in about twenty-five percent of all cases.
At the same time, prices for tobacco products in Russia are among the lowest in the world. Despite the increase in nominal tobacco prices over the past six years, they have steadily declined in real terms, making cigarettes affordable for everyone.
This year, World No Tobacco Day is celebrated under the motto “Tobacco-free Youth”. As part of this event, the Ministry of Health and Social Development is holding the IV All-Russian Conference of Doctors on Tobacco Control.