FCTA Advocates Law To Prosecute Parents Who Send Children To Buy Tobacco

The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) Public Health Department has called for a law that will prosecute parents who send children on errands to buy tobacco related products.

The Director, Public Health Department, FCTA, Dr Doris John, made the call in Abuja at a Sensitization campaign to commemorate the 2024 World No Tobacco Day.

The director said the department decided to carry students along in the road walk to align with the theme of the 2024 World No Tobacco Day “Protecting Children from Tobacco Industry Interference”.

Dr. John frowned at parents who smoked before their children and send them to buy tobacco related products and called for a stringent penalty against such parents.

According to her, in Nigeria, more than 25,000 children between 11 and 18 are daily tobacco users. While the age of tobacco use initiation is between 13 and 15 years in secondary schools while in the universities, studies show shisha smoking rates between 35% to 7%. The tobacco industry is actively focusing on the children and youths in cultivating a new generation of customers. This is highly disturbing as studies have revealed that most smokers start before the age of 18″.

While enumerating the various negative impacts of tobacco on human health, Dr. John explained further that “All forms of tobacco use are harmful, and there is no safe level of exposure to tobacco. Tobacco use is the major cause for non-communicable diseases such as hypertension, diabetes mellitus, chronic obstructive airway disease, stroke, and cancers. Others include tooth decay, blindness, hearing loss, poor wound healing, fragile bones, wrinkling of the skin, low birth weight and sub-fertility. In fact, tobacco smoking can have a negative impact on all the systems of the body.”

In a remark, the FCT Coordinator, World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr Kumshida Balami, urged the children to join the movement to help in driving the campaign against tobacco intake; for a world that was free of tobacco.

She added that smoking could shorten their lives as a healthy lifestyle was always the best.

Florence Adewale, Edited By Grace Namiji