‘I would like a cigarette’, I
said to my father. And I helped myself from his pack of cigarettes. I lit it
and started puffing. I was a teenager then. It was December 27th,
and we were celebrating my father’s name day with some of my parents’ friends
having lunch together at home.
‘It’s not good to smoke’, he said
while I was puffing my ever first cigarette. ‘I used to have the same beautiful
skin as yours - and now look at it! I used to have beautiful teeth, like
yours - and now they’re all brown and some fall. Look at my nails! They’re
yellow. And I struggle to give up and I can’t.’
‘You’re unrecognizable!’ said a
friend of his, who knows him since they were both pupils.
The story of my father, as told
by my mother, is that of a tremendously handsome man, with a ‘magnetic’ face and
body, beautiful skin; black hair with unique curls, a gorgeous smile, her
ideal height, and a sports lover. He takes pride in having learned to swim by
himself and in having crossed the Danube swimming several times; in having
‘decrypted’ with no help and perfectly understood by himself the train book
(the yearly train network in a country) when he was a teen (that he needed for
sports competitions). But nowadays, he is such a completely different-looking person
that when he meets some of his former school or sports mates living in other
cities, he has to remind them about places they’ve been together, in order to
convince them of who he is. Such a transformation! I don’t know if his hair
loss, the eye surgery, and his thick glasses are a consequence of smoking, but
he, generally, blames smoking, nicotine, and cigarettes for this transformation.
He started smoking as a teenager because of his friends.
In the world there are 1,1
billion smokers with 80 percent of them in low and medium-income countries,
which is a paradox because cigarettes are expensive everywhere in the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) warns that 8 million people die yearly because
of the 7,000 chemicals in a cigarette (from which 250 are said to be harmful
and 69 to produce cancer).
Smoking can cause breathing, lung and heart problems, and oral health issues; it
can cause cancer and death. And as if the debate between tobacco producers and
the public health authorities on tobacco products was not strong enough, since
2012 the ENDS were added to this debate.
The
acronym ‘ENDS’ stands for ‘Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems.’ It is not
considered a tobacco product, because it does not contain tobacco, but it is an
issue of public health because it contains nicotine. It targets mainly the
youth because it contains flavors (e.g. mint, menthol, bubble gum, fruits,
etc.). The WHO foresees that this market will grow by 2023 to USD 26,84 billion.
The statistics released in 2019
by the U.S. Food and Drug Agency on the National Youth Tobacco Survey show a
78 percent increase in e-cigarette use (vaping) among middle and high school
pupils in the United States. It is an increase from 11,7 percent (2017) to 20,8
percent (2018). In numbers, this percentage means 3.05 million middle and high
school pupils.
Recently, 400 cases of lung diseases have been reported in 33 U.S. states, with
five deaths having similar symptoms.
The
frequent use of e-cigarettes for 20 out of 30 days increased from 20 percent
(2017) to 27,7 percent (2018). The use of any kind of cigarette went up from
60,9 percent (2017) to 67,8 percent (2018), and the use of menthol ones
grew from 42,3 percent to 51,2 percent (2018). Youth usually names appealing flavors among the first three main reasons for vaping.
Consequently, in September 2019, Trump Administration announced the ban on all
flavored e-cigarettes.
The First Lady, Melania Trump, also called for an end to the use of flavored
e-cigarettes as they may cause nicotine addiction in children.
Despite vaping causing nicotine addiction
and leading to smoking, it may be part of the process when used to quit smoking. However,
only 23 world states (covering 32 percent of the world population) offer national
fully or partially funded plans to quit smoking.
The long-run effects on public health of the ENDS are difficult to be assessed
now, but the WHO brings empirical evidence from chemical and toxicological (less
clinical) studies, which point out that ENDS are less dangerous than cigarettes.
In
the United States, Trump Administration made a purpose for fighting against
all kinds of drugs that cause addiction and be a problem for American
public health because the epidemic context required political decisional
action. For example, in 2017, over 70,000 deaths were caused by opioid
overdose: 40,000 people died because of fentanyl or an analog, usually
produced abroad and smuggled into the United States.
Another example is the seizing by the U.S. federal agents of such an amount of
illicit fentanyl to murder every American four times.
‘Deadly synthetic opioids like
fentanyl continue to take the lives of tens of thousands of Americans every
day. To reverse this trend, we are cracking down on drug traffickers more than
ever before, while also taking unprecedently steps to work with the business
community to stop the productions sale, and transport of these deadly drugs.’
Jim Carroll, Director of the Office of National Drug
Control Policy
The fight against opioid abuse
makes up the third pillar of the Be Best campaign run by the First Lady,
Melania Trump. Within this campaign, she raises awareness about the
consequences of the abuse and addiction of opioids on children and pregnant
women, and she meets or visits hospitals for victims of opioid abuse and their
families. In October 2019 statistics showed the first signs of society
getting healthier, with a general 5,1 percent drop in overdose death, with a
serious drop in most-hit states: Ohio (24 percent), Pennsylvania (23 percent),
Iowa (19 percent), Kentucky (17 percent), etc.
The numbers are encouraging. They can be translated into ‘relief’ and ‘joy’, especially for the victims and their families. It is a first positive step. And
to show this Administration’s commitment in this sense, the U.S. President
donated his third-quarter salary (approx. USD 100,000) to what he called a 'worthy
cause’: the fight against the opioid epidemic.
I remember the beginning of the
U.S. President taking office and the accusations from the opposition that Trump
might have mental problems. When one does positive things that others don’t, when
one identifies a problem it works hard to work it out best, that person is
still called ‘crazy’ for being different, better, for carrying, etc. Some –
unfortunately, many – adore this way of making politics. I profoundly dislike
it. When citizens put politicians in office, they do it hoping for their best.
Instead, politicians give the impression that they seek their own best voting privileges
for themselves without giving (not even!) a damn about what is urgent for
citizens and for society.
I am an adult now,
but I have never finished my teenage cigarette. I have never smoked again. And
I will never will. I also didn’t like the tobacco taste and I am not interested
in trying flavored ones for the sake of a friendly company that usually
changes, particularly when one is growing. More or less harmless, both ENDS and
tobacco determine addiction, and sooner or later they become an issue of personal
and public health, a family and society problem. Governmental plans to help
those who need help to quit smoking or vaping cost societies lots of public
money. Prevention would BE BEST.
OTHER READINGS:
―,
“21st Century Drug Trafficking Advisories on Fentanyl and other
Synthetics Act”. Office of National Drug Control Policy. 21 August 2019. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/White-House-Fentanyl-Advisories-Summary.pdf
“World
No Tobacco Day 2018 Campaign”, https://www.who.int/campaigns/no-tobacco-day/2018/en/
Miller,
Zeke. “White House Launches Website Aimed at Addiction Treatment”. AP. 30 October 2019. Web. https://apnews.com/169d6466d7874e6bab3648ea2513b542
Superville,
Darlene. “First Lady Calls for End of E-cigarette Marketing to youth”. AP. 7 October 2019. Web. https://apnews.com/1528af9ff9764e5e96adab83994d7d8e
