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By Rommel C. Lontayao, Reporter
MORE and more Filipino youths are
now attempting to stop smoking cigarettes, a 2007 Global Youth
Tobacco Survey (GYTS) conducted in the Philippines revealed
Saturday.
According to the survey, 86.1
percent among current smokers want to stop smoking, 87.1 percent
tried to stop smoking during the past year and 85.9 percent have
received help to stop smoking.
“We are very happy that despite the heavy campaign of the
tobacco industry to lure youths into smoking, many young people who
currently smoke have actually expressed interest to quit the
habit,” Health Secretary Francisco Duque 3rd said Saturday.
But Duque said that while the
said figures are encouraging, the GYTS has also found out that some
8.5 percent of those surveyed were offered free cigarettes by a
tobacco company representative.
“We really have to be more vigilant and aggressive with this
advocacy because of the tobacco industries’ blatant display of
desperation on the part of the industry.” Duque said. “We will
not sit and watch our youth getting hooked to smoking.”
The World Health Organization has raised the alarm on the
tobacco marketing net that targets half a billion young people in
the Western Pacific Region, warning of the industry’s marketing
ploys to hook youngsters into addiction at an early age.
“It is true that the number of people who try to quit
smoking has increased, but the tobacco industry is trying to recruit
replacement smokers,” WHO Philippines Representative Dr. Soe Nyunt-U
said.
Soe said that cigarette packs and sticks even come in
different colors and flavors to attract youth and adolescents to get
into smoking.
Recent figures from the Western
Pacific Region GYTS showed that an average of 13.4 percent of
children aged 13 to 15 smoke.
The 2007 Philippine GYTS figures, meanwhile, approximates that
one in every five students currently smoke.
The DOH and other anti-tobacco advocates concede the fact that
media and advertising play big roles in luring young people to
smoking, which is why the government and other health crusaders are
campaigning for a total ban on tobacco advertising, promotion and
sponsorship.
The observance of the World No Tobacco Day this year focuses
on the anti-smoking advocacy campaigns targeting young people with
this year’s theme “Tobacco-Free Youth.”
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