The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has indicated that no form of tobacco is safe for human consumption, be it a vaporiser, shisha, or gum, among others
According to the Director of the Tobacco and Substances of Abuse Division of the FDA, Dr Mrs Olivia Agyekuma Boateng, all tobacco products contain nicotine, an addictive agent, and other chemicals that are harmful to the human body.
“There is no safe form of tobacco, whether you sniff it, inhale it, chew it, if they are gum, they are all not safe”, she stressed when addressing the media on the sideline of a medical outreach, which forms part of activities to commemorate this year’s World No Tobacco Day.
She, therefore, advised the citizenry, especially the youth, to ignore the coy of the industry to present tobacco in different forms, labelling them as safe for human consumption.
She debunked an argument that smoking shisha isn’t harmful to the human body due to the mechanism the pot is designed with.
“For shisha, they say the hooker bottle has water and so the smoke they inhale passes over water so the toxic will stay in the shisha device. That is not true, the chemicals are what you would inhale.
“And the electronic nicotine delivery system also contains nicotine and other unsafe chemicals, so it affects every part of your body. It causes cancers, infertility, impotence, and causes a whole lot of cardiovascular diseases”, she said.
She added that the youth had now switched from using regular tobacco to vaporisers due to this industry myth to project their products as safe, and also due to the enhanced education on regular tobacco by regulatory bodies.
“We are talking to the youth because we have realised that regular tobacco is no longer the trendy thing. What is trending are the vapes. They are vaping, they are doing the shishas, and we are telling them that these are not reduced forms [of tobacco]. There is no safe form of tobacco”, she said.
She further indicated that “nicotine is very addictive, once you start, you get hooked on it. Tobacco is actually a gateway to using hard drugs, so we expect that parents should be interested in what their children are reading or doing. They should be on the social media platforms just like the children are”, she said.
She called for a multi-sectoral approach towards reducing tobacco prevalence in the country to ensure a healthy citizenry.
The Volta Regional Director of the FDA, Gordon Akurugu, stressed that his outfit’s commitment to drumming home the harmful effects of tobacco has led to reduced consumption in the country.
“We will continue until everybody identifies that smoking isn’t good”, he said.
He added that they would continue to keep heightened surveillance at the Ghana-Togo borders, considering its porous nature, hoping to clamp down on smugglers.
“Now, we are working 24 hours; our 24 hours started before the government policy. In the sense that the importers realised that about 6-8 pm, we are no longer there [border], so they stay on no man’s land and come in when we are not there.
“So now our management has given us more staff, and we are working 24/7 on the borders. So even if you come at midnight, there will be a team that will intercept the products, and that is working very well for us in the region”, he said.
