World No Tobacco Day (Recognized by the UN) #WNTD

http://www.who.int/tobacco/wntd/en/

May 31, 2013

Objective:
Bloggers join in to show support for World No Tobacco Day. 2013's theme is "Ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship"

Why 'World No Tobacco Day' is observed?

On May 31 of each year, the world observes World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The objective of being part of World No Tobacco Day is to reduce tobacco consumption that often leads to deadly diseases like cancer and early death.

Bloggers, non-profit organisations and public health organisations actively participate in making this day a success by writing about their personal stories of health affects caused by smoking, distributing placards and displaying posters with the latest information on the ill-effects of consuming tobacco and smoking and taking part in events.

World No Tobacco Day's primary focuses is to encourage users to refrain from tobacco consumption and its related products for a period of at least 24 hours.

World No Tobacco Day was first observed in 1987, after a cabinet of the WHA (World Health Assembly) passed a motion supported by the WHO, with guidelines to manage and curb tobacco consumption.

No Tobacco Day also aims to keep a watch on companies that sell cigarettes and other tobacco products through striking advertisements which influence people to consume their product. To propel its cause and appeal globally, WHA selects a new theme every year.

The theme of World No Tobacco Day 2011 was ‘WHO Framework Convention No Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC)’ that was formed after much observation and in response to the growing tobacco usage. The theme of World No Tobacco Day 2012 was "tobacco industry interference".

The World Health Organization (WHO) focus in 2013 is for bloggers to focus on:

"Ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship"

From the WHO site:

Goals

The global tobacco epidemic kills nearly 6 million people each year, of which more than 600 000 are non-smokers dying from breathing second-hand smoke. Unless we act, the epidemic will kill more than 8 million people every year by 2030. More than 80% of these preventable deaths will be among people living in low- and middle-income countries.

The ultimate goal of World No Tobacco Day is to contribute to protect present and future generations not only from these devastating health consequences, but also against the social, environmental and economic scourges of tobacco use and exposure to tobacco smoke.

Specific objectives of the 2013 campaign are to:

spur countries to implement WHO FCTC Article 13 and its Guidelines to comprehensively ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship such that fewer people start and continue to use tobacco; and
drive local, national and international efforts to counteract tobacco industry efforts to undermine tobacco control, specifically industry efforts to stall or stop comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.

• no tobacco day