‘Tobacco can make you very sick’

All the nasty side effects of tobacco abuse can be avoided by completely avoiding using the substance.

This comment came from Senior Health Promotion Officer from the Ministry of Health, Denise Carter-Taylor, as she spoke to a group of young people at the National Council for Substance Abuse (NCSA) Headquarters yesterday morning.

“From the moment you begin to smoke, from the time you light that cigarette you’re causing damage to your lungs and allowing the diseases that come about as a result enter your lungs and body, and one of these diseases is called emphysema,” she said.

Her presentation consisted of photos which showed children exactly what happened to a person’s body after they have made the decision to smoke. Her address garnered quite a bit of discussion from the children as some of the effects she revealed genuinely surprised them as they did not link some of the bodily effects with tobacco use.

Meanwhile, in another room, Donna Barker, a Health Promotion Officer also from the Ministry of Health, addressed the parents of the children and gave them statistical information on the level of tobacco abuse in young children and adults as well as statistics about the use of tobacco following the law that was passed in 2010 regarding smoking in public places. Although the number of persons taking part in tobacco use did not appear to be high, Barker believed that this was an issue that still needed to be addressed.

Makeada Bourne, Community Programme Officer of NCSA, revealed that yesterday’s activities were to recognise World No Tobacco Day, which is usually recognised around the world May 31. She noted that it was going to be a whole day project filled with activities where parents and children from the 2016 Project SOFT Programme, will first be addressed by Ministry of Health Representatives, followed by a short poster drawing session and a movie viewing – which will target their specific age groups with educational messages – following their lunch break.