It would seem that with the alert of resounding sirens, a new World No Tobacco Day is opening up this May 31, which under the auspices of the World Health Organization has been celebrated since 1987. This 2022 with the exergue: Tobacco poisons our planet.
It is not for less, because recent data reveals that smoking kills more than 8 million people every year around the planet, a figure that is estimated to reach by 2030, a decade in advance.
In Cuba, health authorities faithfully comply with the provisions and suggestions of the WHO and PAHO (Pan American Health Organization), in this regard. Both in the development of educational and preventive campaigns against smoking, and in the application of treatment to help those who want to quit addiction and facilitating access to therapeutics.
Even Cuban science has provided the world with the most effective vaccine that currently exists against lung cancer. There are gradual and real advances, it is not an illusion. But it must be recognized that vulnerability lies in the culture and inherited individual awareness regarding the issue, in a nation that for years had one of its main economic items in the tobacco industry, with a deep-rooted influence on customs and traditions.
That is why, according to a simple visual assessment, whether communal or family, in Cuba there is still too much smoking and specially in the female sector, the habit is also ladylike. This evidence cannot be denied, which is why educational and preventive work must gain in activism, without representing social pressure that undermines people's rights.
A day like May 31 will therefore be an imperative and welcome day.
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