World No Tobacco Day is celebrated this Wednesday, with Parliament already receiving a government letter to curb the sale and consumption of a product that killed 13,500 people in 2019.
According to a report by the National Program for the Prevention and Control of Tobacco Use of the General Directorate of Health, over 13,500 people died from tobacco-related diseases in Portugal in 2019, of which 10,814 were men and 2,745 were women.
According to the results of the 2019 National Health Survey, 17% of the Portuguese population aged 15 and over smoked daily or occasionally, three percentage points less than in 2014.
Data from the DGS program also showed that 1.3 million people smoke daily and 248,000 smoke occasionally in Portugal.
The current tobacco law has been in place since 2017, and on May 11, the Council of Ministers approved a new diploma that intends to “go further” in restrictions on sales and restrictions on consumption, arguing that it is “a very serious breach of public health.” problem”.
One of the measures originally envisaged in the proposed law was a ban on the sale of tobacco at gas stations, which was contested by representatives of the sector and which the government abandoned, arguing that in some places “the place to buy tobacco was too far away.”
With the diploma now in the Assembly of the Republic, the government aims to create a “tobacco-free generation by 2040”, also taking into account the new consumption patterns that have emerged for products such as heated cigarettes, especially among young people. .
WHO estimates that globally, tobacco causes eight million deaths each year, and this year it is asking governments to stop subsidizing tobacco growing and support food crops.
The Geneva-based organization warns that while more than 300 million people worldwide face severe food insecurity, about three million hectares of land are being used to grow tobacco “even in countries where people are starving.”
World No Tobacco Day, celebrated annually on May 31, was adopted in 1989 at the 42nd World Health Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO).
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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