Young people mobilize “for a tobacco-free generation”

2023-05-31 11:51:22

Young people are mobilizing and want a “tobacco free” generation. They claim it in the so-called “Madrid Declaration” in which they ask for protection from the tobacco industry and effective legislation that does not normalize its consumption.

On World No Tobacco Day, eleven Third Sector entities have joined the Spanish Association against Cancer (AECC) already The What Really Matters Foundation, to “stand up” to the tobacco industry. They want to generate a movement among young people in order to achieve the first tobacco-free generation by 2040.

Young people have raised their voices by reading this “Madrid Declaration” and they have done it in an act in which they have pasted posters as a symbolic start of this social mobilization campaign led by them in the digital environment with the motto #quenotevendanhumo.

No more lies

In the document, the youth claims that they do not tell more “lies” in relation to tobacco because all its variants and products related to this substance are harmful to health. In fact, it is not only the biggest preventable cause of death and disease in the world, but its cultivation and residues also damage the environment.

“We know that it is possible to face and significantly reduce the threat and impact of tobacco with appropriate measures,” reads the manifesto.

Young people maintain that, despite all this, Neither the authorities nor society are “brave” to eradicate the threat of tobacco. Thus, they request protection against the “strategies” of the tobacco industry.

Video of the hanging of posters as part of the campaign. Ceded by the AECC

No advertising or promotion

Another request: that there be no advertising or promotion of tobacco and derived products on audiovisual platforms, social media and any other channel “where young people have fun, inform and socialize.”

The young people ask that this industry “does not have so easy to intervene in the policies of the different countries when it comes to putting brakes on this threat.” For this reason, they want a more severe regulation so that this does not happen.

And it is that they defend that children and young people can feel safe because they do not want to be “future clients of tobacco companies.”

EFE/Javier Etxezarreta

effective legislation

In this sense, they demand “effective legislation” that protects them from starting to smoke and not normalizing their consumption.

Addressing health inequalities with appropriate policies is another of the requests of the manifesto, which also ensures the preservation of the environment from pollution and degradation linked to tobacco and new products.

“The planet does not smoke, but suffers the consequences of tobacco. Because we only have one planet and we have to take care of it”, the text abounds.

Among the points, they collect that young people mobilize against this substance: “I ask you to say enough is enough, to help us achieve a tobacco-free society”.

They also request help for smokers who want to leave behind a life with smoke to do so: “it is a disease and it must be treated as such.”

“The moment is now. For a generation free of tobacco”, concludes the text.