WORLD NO TOBACCO DAY

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (15:34): I rise today to draw the attention of those present to World No Tobacco Day. It was in 1988 that the World Health Assembly passed a resolution which resulted in the observance of World No Tobacco Day annually on 31 May. Since then, this initiative has been marked right around the world.

Smoking is extremely distasteful to me. It is especially saddening to see so many young people smoking. Research now indicates that the adolescent brain is so malleable that just one packet of cigarettes is sufficient to cause addiction, and we are all too well aware that it is an enormously difficult addiction to break. Tobacco is the second major cause of death in the world. I do not need to spell out the number and range of conditions that have been linked conclusively to tobacco smoking. Excellent public health campaigns over the years have made that very clear.

This year's theme for World No Tobacco Day, 'Gender and Tobacco with an Emphasis on Marketing to Women' (and, by extension, girls) has caught my attention, and I think it is well worth talking about in this place. Like men and boys, women and girls run a number of risks when they smoke. Some of these are gender specific. In some cases the risks of smoking are higher for women than they are for men. For example, women smokers have an increased risk of cervical cancer and it is well documented that women smokers have an increased level of pregnancy complications including lower birth weights. Women who smoke and take oral contraceptives have an increased risk of heart attack, thrombosis and stroke. Research suggests that women smokers experience a considerably lower age for first heart attacks than those who do not smoke. This differential is considerably more significant than that for male smokers and non-smokers.

There are many theories about what causes people to smoke. Among these are stress. Men and women are stressed in today's 21^st century arguably in ways that their forebears were not. It is well accepted now that teenage girls, who are particularly subjected to images of impossibly thin mannequins, actors and other apparent role models, may be persuaded to smoke as a mechanism to lose weight or remain slim. Academic pressure can also cause anxiety and school-age girls can see smoking as a way to relieve that pressure. Social and peer pressure are all factors in this dangerous equation.

Launching the report Women and Health: Today's Evidence, Tomorrow's Agenda, the Director-General of the World Health Organisation, Dr Margaret Chan, said on 9 November last year that the globalisation of unhealthy lifestyles was having an increasing impact on women and girls. WHO statistics indicate that there are more than one billion smokers in the world today and about one-fifth of these are women and girls.

Statistical material from 151 countries demonstrates that some 7 per cent of adolescent girls smoke, as do 12 per cent of adolescent boys. However, while male smoking figures have stabilised, the number of female smokers is increasing. In some countries, the rates have almost reached parity.

Cynically, the tobacco industry is looking towards developing countries, and is particularly targeting young Asian women with messages linking tobacco use with emancipation, power and equality. Of course, tobacco companies see women and girls as an ideal target for smoking promotion. They can step in and fill the market gaps when current smokers die prematurely.

Although World No Tobacco Day 2010 will focus on the detrimental effects of the marketing of smoking on women and girls, it will not forget the need to shield boys and men from the marketing strategies of the tobacco companies. As the WHO's 2007 document, Gender and Tobacco Control: a Policy Brief, pointed out:

Generic tobacco control measures may not be equally or similarly effective in respect of the two sexes...(A) gendered perspective must be included...It is therefore important that tobacco control policies recognise and take into account gender norms, differences and responses to tobacco in order to...reduce tobacco use and improve the health of men and women worldwide.

In an earlier 2007 report, Sifting the Evidence: Gender and Tobacco Control, the WHO stated perhaps even more strongly:

Both men and women need full information about the sex-specific effects of tobacco use...equal protection from gendered advertising and marketing and the development of sex-specific tobacco products by transnational tobacco companies...(and) gender-sensitive information about, and protection from, second-hand smoke and occupational exposure to tobacco or nicotine.

This year, the WHO through World No Tobacco Day will encourage and support government scrutiny of the targeting of women and girls by tobacco multinationals.