‘Don’t expose yourselves to second-hand smoke’
The Head of the Tobacco and Substance Abuse Department of the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), Mrs Olivia Boateng, has advised children not to inhale smoke from people who smoke.
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She stated that “second-hand smoking is as harmful as smoking itself” and asked children to be wary of exposing themselves to such smoke.
She explained that “children usually do not smoke but if their parents do that in their presence or they sit around people who smoke, they inhale the same cancer-causing substances as smokers and are even at a higher risk of developing lung cancer.
Mrs Boateng said this when she spoke in an interview with the Junior Graphic as part of the celebration of the “World No Tobacco Day” celebration which fell on May 31.
She stated that non-smokers who inhaled second-hand smoke from shisha or cigarettes took in nicotine and toxic chemicals by the same route smokers do.
The theme for the celebrations was “Tobacco—a threat to development”. Second-hand smoking is the unconscious or involuntary inhalation of smoke by anyone who finds himself/herself within a circumference of about 10 metres where an active smoker is smoking.
She said older children exposed to second-hand smoke usually suffered from ear infections, bronchitis and pneumonia “since their lungs do not grow as well as children who are not exposed to the smoke.”
Mrs Boateng added that people with asthma usually had more frequent and severe attacks when they inhaled cigarette smoke, which could also lead to death.
The head of the Tobacco and Substance Abuse Department also indicated that children of mothers who smoked during pregnancy were at higher risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), which is the sudden unexplained deaths of infants in the first year of life.
She pointed out that under the Public Health Act 851, 2012, Section Six, children are protected from tobacco use because it is an offence to sell or offer for sale tobacco or a tobacco product to a child or send a child to sell or buy tobacco or a tobacco product.
Mrs Boateng added that no one should request a child to light a cigarette or expose a child to tobacco or tobacco use pointing out that if anyone goes against it, it is punishable by law.
She noted that one was liable to a fine of not more than GH¢9000 or a term of imprisonment of not more than three years.
She also cautioned that water-pipe or shisha smoking, a new trend of tobacco use in the country, especially among the youth, is also as dangerous as tobacco smoking.
“World health experts have warned that an hour-long session of shisha smoking equals 100 to 200 sticks of cigarettes smoking,” she warned.
She asked the youth to avoid negative peer pressure and stay away from tobacco and its products because every cigarette smoked shortened one’s life by about five minutes, which is about the same time used to smoke it.
Mrs Boateng also advised that those who wanted to quit the use of tobacco could get help from their teachers, parents and health personnel who had been trained to assist them.