The World Health Organisation has branded a particular issue as “one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced.” What would you guess it could be? HIV? Swine flu? Icelandic Volcanic Ash? Nope, its smoking.
I know you’ve heard it all before, every time a smoker gets their fags out the words ‘smoking kills’ or ‘Smoking can cause a slow and painful death’ are thrust into view in massive black letters that, let’s face it, when you’re already on a bit of a downer with revision and lack of social life, it’s enough to ruin your whole day.
But the thing is, smoking does kill, it can give you heart attacks, contributes to Alzheimer’s disease, and lung cancer amongst many other unpleasant ailments. But before you turn over the page because you think I’m just going to ramble on for words and words about how smoking will eventually cause you a premature death (which it most likely will by the way) and ask you to throw the fags in the bin now and never look back, that is not what I’m going to talk about. But I am suggesting that you quit, just for one day at the end of May, when it is the official World No Tobacco Day.
The World Health Organisation designates the 31st of May each year as World No Tobacco Day. It is meant to encourage a 24 hour period of abstinence from all forms of tobacco consumption, and raise awareness of the extreme dangers of tobacco to your health. Each year a theme is selected for the day to send out a strong global message. This year the theme is ‘Gender and Tobacco with an emphasis on marketing to women due to the massive increase of smoking in women and particularly girls. Women are currently a main target for tobacco companies as they need a new market to replace the nearly half of current users who will die prematurely due to their habit.
Although this day has been going on now for 22 years, smokers meet the day with resistance and see it as more of a punishment and an infringement on their human rights than anything else. But come on people, it’s just one day. Don’t get all worked up about it, just see if you can give up for 24 hours, that is jut 1440 minutes of your whole entire life when you can puff away for as long as you want… or for at least as long as you want until it kills you (sorry I couldn’t stop myself).
A symbol of no tobacco day is a to put fresh flowers in an ash try instead of a burnt out cigarette, so why not buy a bunch of flowers and see how it goes… in any case, the flowers will make you smell better.
