Muslim students advised to abstain from smoking

Accra, July 12, GNA - Mr Edwin T. Adams, Principal Nursing Officer at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital, last weekend called on Muslim students in Senior High Schools to abstain from smoking. He said tobacco was one of the major causes of cancer in the world currently, adding that over 70 per cent of substances in tobacco were cancer causing agents.

Mr Adams was speaking at a seminar organised by the Ghana Muslim Mission for Muslim students to educate them on some negative lifestyles and immoral behaviours in their schools and other places of life. He said smoking could destroy the lungs and increase the amount of hydrochloric acid that is released into the stomach, which normally causes ulcer.

Mr Adams noted that only 30 per cent of smoke produced was inhaled by the smoker, while the remaining 70 per cent permeated into thin air causing various health problems to the passive smoker. He said adverts in magazines and newspapers, on television and radio influenced students negatively, adding that peer pressure and imitation from parents also caused most students to smoke. Mr Adams advised the students to be wary of such advertisement, be firm in their endeavours and advise their colleagues about the dangers of smoking.

Dr Rabiatu Armah Konney, Senior Lecturer, University of Ghana, said the spiritual, moral and religious values of Muslim students were deteriorating at a very fast rate, giving ways to evil and sinful ways of life beautifully packaged and branded as modernisation and civilisation.

She said the availability and accessibility of information technology had had diverse effects on the education of students in recent times, adding that most students normally copied blindly from such mediums to lead their lives.

Dr Konney urged the students to be very careful about the kind of information they received from the internet and endeavour to concentrate on their studies in order to enhance the development of the Muslim community and the country.