CHESTER SAM­BRA­NO

The Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA) has said to­bac­co use re­mains a ma­jor pub­lic health con­cern in the Caribbean.

In a state­ment in recog­ni­tion of World No To­bac­co Day—ob­served an­nu­al­ly on May 31—CARPHA said there is no safe lev­el of ex­po­sure to to­bac­co smoke.

"The use of to­bac­co prod­ucts in any form harms near­ly every or­gan of the body, ir­re­spec­tive of whether it is smoked, smoke­less, or elec­tron­ic,” CARPHA warns in its state­ment. 

“Of all the forms of to­bac­co use, most com­mon in the Caribbean re­gion is cig­a­rette smok­ing.  Cig­a­rette smok­ing is the num­ber one risk fac­tor for lung can­cer. Us­ing oth­er to­bac­co prod­ucts such as cig­ars or pipes al­so in­creas­es the risk for this dis­ease," CARPHA said.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­gion­al health body, sec­ond-hand smoke ex­po­sure caus­es stroke, lung can­cer, and coro­nary heart dis­ease in adults.  In chil­dren, it caus­es acute res­pi­ra­to­ry in­fec­tions and se­vere asth­ma.

"It is a pre­ventable risk fac­tor for non­com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases (NCDs), which are the lead­ing cause of death, dis­ease and dis­abil­i­ty among Caribbean peo­ple," CARPHA said.

CARPHA not­ed that this year, World No To­bac­co Day’s theme is “Grow Food, Not To­bac­co”.

It said the cam­paign ad­vo­cates for end­ing to­bac­co cul­ti­va­tion and switch­ing to more sus­tain­able crops that im­prove food se­cu­ri­ty and nu­tri­tion.