Avoiding enormous unnecessary suffering and thousands of deaths a year is in our hands, or to put it more graphically, between our fingers. Europe is the region of the world where people smoke the most, and specifically in our country there are close to eight million people who consume tobacco on a regular basis, this being the leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality. Not in vain is it known that smoking kills each year (directly or indirectly) more than 50,000 people in Spain.
Despite the forcefulness of these data, Spain continues to be relatively lagging behind or giving a timid response to a tobacco industry that continues to profit at the expense of people’s health. And it is that, despite the fact that the Minister of Health declared in February 2022 that the “Anti-tobacco law needed an update to save lives”, this same ministry apparently filed the anti-tobacco plan last October, which, in If confirmed, it would leave the 48 million inhabitants of Spain relatively unprotected against this threat. Let’s remember that tobacco smoke, in addition to eventually leading to death, causes respiratory, heart and other diseases, being responsible for 30% of cancer cases, which entails enormous personal and family suffering, without forgetting the burden and associated social impact.
The WHO International Framework Convention on tobacco is being implemented in a heterogeneous way in Europe. There are countries like France, the Netherlands, Hungary and Norway that have taken a step forward in the fight against smoking by implementing plain packaging, thus addressing one of the pillars of the tobacco industry’s marketing strategy. However, and even seeing how neighboring countries advance, Spain is lagging relatively behind in terms of tobacco prevention and control.
Is it impossible to beat the pulse of the tobacco industry and all its propaganda and lobbying machinery? Absolutely. And a clear example is New Zealand, a country that has decided to protect the entire population and especially the youngest, and that prohibit the sale of tobacco to those born after 2009. In Europe we also have an example to follow, Finland, which will toughen its restrictions on smoking in public and tobacco advertising for the next few years, setting a clear objective: to eliminate tobacco by 2030.
Finland’s seems a more modest step compared to New Zealand’s, but it is a great step forward in protecting the health of the nation, considering the tactics of the lobby of tobacco. And it is that the industry uses all its weapons to prevent governments from curbing tobacco, looking for legal loopholes to poison society, making monetary donations to apparently altruistic states as part of their “corporate social responsibility”, influencing the smoking prevention policies of each country as a consequence of these “donations”, launching new products such as vapers of attractive colors and flavors with the aim of attracting a young population or even positioning itself as an ecological ally and championing a world without smoke.
The largest tobacco company in the world launched the perverse project CombustOFF – goodbye to cigarette smoke using the media to position itself as an entity concerned with people’s health, selling new forms of tobacco as an alternative to quit smoking, with the potential confusion generated in the population by telling them that these new products are less harmful to the health, when the truth is, they are unequivocally harmful.
Faced with this situation, and although the Government of Spain for the moment is not making any moves in approving the Comprehensive Plan for the Control and Prevention of Tobacco Addiction 2021-2025, scientific societies, health professionals, patient organizations, in short, social actors concerned about the health of the population, have said “It just is!“ throughout these months. All of them have focused their efforts on creating awareness in society about the reality of tobacco, reporting the government’s passivity in the face of the actions of tobacco companies and joining forces in statements such as End me of tobacco in Spain 2030 – for a generation free of smoke, tobacco and nicotine. The fight against tobacco will continue for our part with the goal of achieving the first generation free of tobacco smoke in 2030. With this objective in mind and given the real urgency of giving new impetus to legislation against smoking, which has not been updated for more than a decade, researchers, health professionals, political decision-makers and activists will meet in Madrid, from 26 to April 28 in the event called European Conference on Tobacco or Healthwhich constitutes one of the most important congresses at the European level on tobacco, to address the associated social and health problem and the way to move forward in the face of this challenge.
today, All of society, smokers or not, is defenseless against the more than 70 carcinogenic substances that tobacco smoke contains.. Given this, he urges the government to stand up to the tobacco industry, be brave and step forward for the citizenry. An update of the law is necessary to protect the general population, and within this, especially those most vulnerable groups such as minors and people suffering from basic pathologies. And we raise our voices because… it’s a matter of life and death.
*Jose M Martin Morenois a professor of Preventive Medicine at the University of Valencia, and president of the Scientific Committee of the European Conference on Tobacco or Health 2023 organized by the Spanish Association Against Cancer & European Cancer Leagues
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