Time to take tobacco dependence treatment seriously

摘要

During the Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Tobacco Control Awards ceremony at the World Conference on Tobacco or Health (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; March, 2015) an award was given to Uruguay (the first MPOWER "O" award) that recognised the importance of tobacco dependence treatment in an overall tobacco control policy. WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) requires parties to develop comprehensive tobacco dependence treatment guidelines. In 2010, the conference of the FCTC parties adopted the FCTC article 14 implementation guidelines, which stress that cessation support implemented in conjunction with other policy interventions will have a synergistic effect and maximise effects on public health. The guidelines outline what countries should be doing regarding tobacco dependence treatment; yet only 15% of the world's population has access to appropriate cessation support. Furthermore, worldwide success in tobacco cessation is imperative to attain the goal of WHO and the UN of a 25% reduction in premature mortality from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) by 2025. Only effective tobacco cessation will have a sufficient effect on mortality in the 10 years left to reach that goal. Failure on that front will surely thwart the global aspiration for success in NCD control by 2025. Implementation of article 14 and its guidelines will bring health and economic benefits to countries. Helping smokers to stop is a highly cost-effective health-care intervention by saving lives, improving population health and reducing health-care costs. Every day that smokers aged older than 35 years continue to smoke they lose about 3-6 h of life. Thus, for the estimated 500 million current adult smokers, 62 million days of life are lost every day. Some of these people who smoke will stop unaided, but many others will stop only after repeated attempts over time. Many more smokers will not stop, and will die before they can stop. Helping these people to stop sooner rather than later will save lives. Implementation of tobacco control measures such as tax increases, restrictions on smoking in public places, and media campaigns, create demand for cessation support.