ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Nov. 18, 2012) – Zamboanga City in the southern Philippines is studying a proposal to ban smoking in public places just as other key cities in the country which penalized cigarette smokers who violate local ordinances.
Council woman Myra Paz Abubakar, who authored an ordinance to ban smoking in public areas, is optimistic that the bill would be approved following an overwhelming support from many residents and health advocates.
In Davao City, smoking in public places has long been banned and the penalty for violators could reach as much as P10,000 and dozens of cities and municipalities have also the same anti-smoking ordinances because of the dangers posed by exposure to second-hand smoke.
According to the World Health Organization, over 600, 000 people die each year from exposure to second-hand smoke and the annual death toll could rise to more than eight million by 2030.
Second-hand smoke is the smoke that fills restaurants, offices or other enclosed spaces when people burn tobacco products such as cigarettes. There is no safe level of exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke, it said.
WHO said less than 11% of the world’s population are protected by comprehensive national smoke-free laws and that the number of people protected from second-hand smoke more than doubled to 739 million in 2010 from 354 million in 2008.
It said almost half of children regularly breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke and that over 40% of children have at least one smoking parent.
WHO said there are more than 4,000 chemicals in tobacco smoke, of which at least 250 are known to be harmful and more than 50 are known to cause cancer. In adults, second-hand smoke causes serious cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, including coronary heart disease and lung cancer. And it causes sudden death in infants and also causes low birth weight in pregnant women.
It said the tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced. It kills nearly 6 million people a year of whom more than 5 million are users and ex-users.
Nearly 80% of the more than 1 billion smokers worldwide live in low and middle-income countries, where the burden of tobacco-related illness and death is heaviest, WHO said. (Mindanao Examiner)
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