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World No Tobacco Day Proven Successful

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World No Tobacco Day Proven Successful

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Carol Pearson

June 01, 2012

May 31 marked the 25th anniversary of World No Tobacco Day, a day set aside by the World Health Organization (WHO) to draw global attention to the devastating health results that come from using tobacco products. On earlier anniversaries, public health officials couldn't tell if the program was effective in encouraging people to stop smoking, but that's changed.

Every year, Americans observe the Great American Smoke Out, a day set aside to encourage smokers to go without a cigarette for one day. Suddenly giving up a habit is referred to as "going cold turkey." In Knoxville, Tennessee, smokers on one anniversary could trade in their cigarettes for a real cold turkey.

One day events like The Great American Smoke Out or World No Tobacco Day usually get publicity, but it was impossible to scientifically determine their effectiveness.

The Google search engine changed all of that. Joanna Cohen heads the Global Tobacco Initiative at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

"Today with the tools of Google News and being able to analyze Internet search queries, you can actually pinpoint the effects of actual days," noted Cohen. The researchers picked several countries in Latin America for their study. Among the reasons: Spanish is the main language so the researchers were able to examine the impact of World No Tobacco Day in many countries with only one language.

What they found was encouraging for health officials who are trying to get people to quit smoking.

"If you look at people searching for how to quit smoking which would be the logical next step - awareness and then interest in cessation - we see on average about 40 percent increase in all those countries in all years from 2000 onward," said John Ayers, the study's lead author who spoke to VOA via Skype.

The researchers say these spikes in interest on how to quit smoking could have potentially large health implications.

"What our study shows is that World No Tobacco Day is having a significant impact on raising interest in and awareness of cessation in these developing countries," added Ayers.

The researchers say this information will help the health ministries in countries around the world because if they know that their citizens are interested in information on how to stop smoking, the ministries can provide better online information on World No Tobacco Day to help people kick the smoking habit.

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by: jonik from: USA

June 19, 2012 7:10 PM

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Many many smokers have been experiencing "No Tobacco Days" for many years....if they smoke the kinds of cigarettes that are made in US Patented ways entirely from "tobacco substitute material".

Some brands may look, smell, taste, feel and deliver nicotine just as if they were tobacco. We think it's tobacco also because it's sold in a "tobacco shop", hit with "tobacco taxes", and prohibited based on studies of tobacco.

Just some things that may constitute a "tobacco" product:
Corncobs, wood pulp, eucalyptus, peanut shells, rye, corn, oats, carbon filled paper, sunflower, castor oil, rapeseed, alpha cellulose, coffee bean hulls, sagebrush, mesquite chips, corn silk, oxidized cellulose, etc etc etc. None Of It Labeled.

Of course, even if a cigarette contains tobacco, by the time it's processed and adulterated, it's not Tobacco any more. It's Processed, Adulterated Tobacco, at best. It's also contaminated with pesticides, dioxin-creating chlorine, radiation from certain fertilizers and any of over 1000 untested non-tobacco additives.
That's not tobacco...it's Poisoned Tobacco...the Big Thing that anti-smoking officials do not discuss because, probably, they have economic links to cigarette industry suppliers and to all their insurers and investors. Those entities want blame for illnesses dumped onto the victims and on the unpatented "sinful" tobacco plant.

If this whole anti-tobacco crusade is based on studies that don't even acknowledge that what they study isn't tobacco, then something's wrong.

What we need is a "No Untested, Unlabeled, or Known Toxic Non-Tobacco Substances in Cigarettes Day". A "Prosecute The Perpetrators Day" is another long-overdue option.

by: John Q. Citizen

June 06, 2012 10:36 AM

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“…smokers on one anniversary could trade in their cigarettes for a real cold turkey”, – that’s the point. The capitalism that reclaims its position all over the world is increasingly stripping the people off. The social stratification is the key word here. The smokers will soon readily trade in all their cigarettes for a pack of milk or a brick of bread.
“…we see on average about 40 percent increase in all those countries in all years from 2000 onward", – it’s when people had realized for good and all that it’s time to say goodbye to the residual socialism in their countries.
And yet, it’s good that people quit smoking. A blessing in disguise. By the way, people are quitting overeating as well.

by: Anonymous

June 01, 2012 6:02 PM

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Anything that the government ban I try, because I think they scare people on purpose, to play with their head to make them robots! So now my next thing to do is smoking!