It has always been a controversial affair, this habit that turns men into walking chimneys and roasts their lungs. But not even Christopher Columbus’s men who popularized this weed-puffing lifestyle in the course of their famous exploration in the Americas would ever imagine the extinguisher dangling over this multibillion dollar business today. The future does look bleak for this industry.
The friendly people in this rickety church building let their mouths lose as you announced: “You men, do you know that tobacco takes away your manliness, leaving you with not only stale breathes and lean pockets, but also killer cancer?”
They better take that as a life-saving gospel. What else would make a young woman come, on a Sunday morning, in dilapidated buses across pothole-ridden roads to this long forgotten village? It’s the burden for a smoke-free Nigeria.
I currently work as project officer and Gender Focal Person with the Environmental Rights/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), Nigeria’s most visible environmental NGO. I am the presenter of ERA/FoEN’s tobacco control media initiative Tobacco & You, a weekly radio show.
My interest in tobacco control issues stems from the current rise in the use of tobacco in developing countries (with attended health catastrophe), a contrast to the trends in the developed world where access to information, a barrage of anti-tobacco control campaigns and government policies are literally sending the tobacco multinationals packing.
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