HEALTH Minister Dr Christopher Tufton used the opportunity of Tuesday’s celebration of the annual World No Tobacco Day to kick-start his ministry’s campaign against the use of tobacco products, especially among youth.

“Let World No Tobacco Day be a shout-out that we are going to start a campaign right now, from here on, to show why tobacco is bad for you. It kills, and it kills quickly and painfully, and frankly speaking, there are better habits you can pick up. It’s not worth it,” Dr Tufton warned students attending a youth forum highlighting the annual event at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston.

The minister particularly criticised the growing use of e-cigarettes by young people, which he said is now available in the schools using a technological device with “nice colours and nice features” that raises the curiosity of smokers and would-be smokers as an alternative to tobacco smoking but which, he said, was even worse than tobacco smoke.

“It comes looking like a pen, sometimes it looks like a pencil, sometimes it looks like all sorts of things. As young people, everybody is curious to find out what is in there. I know I am not wrong: everybody is curious, and the manufacturers of these products — they make it so that people are curious,” the minister pointed out.

“They put all the nice colours and the nice features so everybody wants it and because you [students] can use it and the teacher don’t know — because the smell may not be as high, and you can hide it so it doesn’t look like the typical tobacco-branded product — a lot of you can get away with it,” he explained.

“On World No Tobacco Day, I want to say to you, as young people here and out there, that it is worse than the tobacco that you smoke, because that chemical that is in that thing will affect your lungs, your brain and everything else,” he warned youth physically representing four high schools — Calabar, Jamaica College, Meadowbrook and Pembroke Hall — as well as students from 27 other high schools who watched the hybrid event via Zoom.

Tufton reminded the audience that the Government is coming with legislation, the Tobacco Control Act (Bill) currently before a joint select committee (JSC) of Parliament, which is expected to complete its work soon. This will enable the next stage of legislative activity, Parliamentary approval of the JSC’s report following its tabling in Parliament.

“The next step is the debate and, hopefully, as I appealed to my parliamentary colleagues in the sectoral [debate], we won’t have much issue to pass it because, frankly speaking, the comprehensive legislation is impatient of debate, even though I fully respect the right of my colleagues to engage. But we have to follow the process,” he said.

“When that is done, we are going to provide that information to all of the country, young and old. But we are going to target the younger population because we don’t want you to develop bad habits. We want you to know from early, as we are now highlighting it,” he stated.

Tufton was supported by advisor to the Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) on non-communicable diseases and mental health, Dr Michelle Harris, who reminded the audience that World No Tobacco Day was now 34 years old, and with PAHO’s 120 years’ existence behind it, they have been working collaboratively with the ministries of health in member nations, through the national councils on drug abuse, to reduce tobacco smoking.

She said that PAHO is supporting Jamaica’s Ministry of Health, “and encourages, in every way possible, the efforts to reduce a scourge like tobacco that can impact on the health and well-being of the population”.

“The best opportunity to reduce the impact of tobacco and protect the environment is now, and we have a responsibility to stop poisoning our planet,” she stated.

Other speakers included executive director of the local National Council on Drug Abuse (NCDA) Michael Tucker and executive director of the Heart Foundation of Jamaica Deborah Chen.

The speeches were followed by a panel discussion on the day’s theme, “Tobacco Exposed: ‘No Butts About It’”, by a panel including minister of state in the Ministry of Health and Welfare Juliet Cuthbert Flynn, and the presentation of awards by the NCDA.