Minister Blasts Tobacco Industry

Dr. Kweku Afriyie, Minister of Health, has accused the tobacco industry of using film and fashion to induce people to smoke. He said tobacco companies "provide cigarettes, gifts, service or cash in exchange for placement of their products in films".

The Minister was addressing the "World No Tobacco Day" in Accra last week. The World No Tobacco Day was observed under the international theme, "Tobacco Free Film, Tobacco Free Fashion".


Giving more details on how the industry uses films to entice the public, the Minister said the tobacco companies have adopted a strategy by which specific movies and actors are selected to use their brands in their movies. He said this is clearly done in order to "create awareness and communicate promotional messages" to the public.


Dr. Kweku quoted research conducted in the US, which revealed that non smoking teens whose favorite actors frequently smoke during movies are sixteen times more likely to smoke in future.


"31% of teenagers who saw more than 150 occurrences of smoking in movies had tried smoking compared to only 4% who had seen less than 50 occurrences", the research established.


The Minister said tobacco companies select creative fashion designers and models to sponsor their shows and competitions indirectly promoting their products.

He said, owing to the growing number of smokers and its harmful effects on both smokers and non smokers, member countries of the World Health Organization (WHO), of which Ghana is a member, are agreed on rules for the marketing, advertising, promotion and sponsorship of tobacco products.


WHO, he said, last year called for an end to the use of sports for the promotion of tobacco use. He said this year WHO has called on the film and fashion industry to stop promoting tobacco use.


He said despite efforts by the government since 1989 to mitigate the spread of cigarette, "unfortunately, these pronouncements were not backed by law".


Dr. Afriyie called on Ghanaians to help the youth to "grow up without tobacco".


Dr. Ebrahim M. Samba, WHO Regional Director for Africa said tobacco is the only product that kills half of its regular users. "There are 4.9 million global tobacco-related deaths annually," he said.

He said owning to the fight against the use of tobacco, its manufacturers are looking for new markets and customers. He said the most unfortunate side is that, "developing countries, especially those in Africa are the prime targets". He said their efforts are working because of "absence of or very weak tobacco control legislation".


Dr. Samba said people are attracted to cigarettes because of how they are being portrayed as a trendy fashion accessory. He said people who smoke are regarded as fashionable, fun, glamorous, beautiful and as elegant trendsetters.


He said a study done by the Global Youth Tobacco Survey in various countries in Africa, indicated that '9-37% and 9-35% of boys and girls respectively thought that boys and girls who smoke were more attractive'.