Smoking cessation a serious challenge- GATS research

Correspondent | Friday November 19, 2021 11:30

Statistics show that in 2017, 83.9% of tobacco smokers planned to or were thinking about quitting. More than half (57.8%) of tobacco smokers made a quit attempt. Two-thirds of tobacco smokers (67.0%) who made a quit attempt tried to do so without any assistance. Amongst smokers who visited health care providers, 51.8% were asked if they smoked and 43.7% were advised to quit smoking. Overall, 7.0 percent of smokers quit in just 12 months.

Describing why it is difficult for one to quit smoking, Psychiatrist Dr Thula said, “Cigarettes should be rated as a potentially more harmful drug than illegal substances such as ecstasy and lysergide (LSD). Cigarettes lead to addiction, which is a chronic relapse disease; it affects the body and how it is supposed to function. When you smoke a cigarette it only takes six to 10 seconds for the nicotine to reach your brain. This makes smoking tobacco very addictive and difficult to stop.

Nicotine that is inhaled in cigarette smoke is absorbed by the lungs into the bloodstream and quickly goes to the heart and brain”.

Current stats reflect that 18.3% of adults aged between 15 and 69 in Botswana smoke tobacco. Rates are much higher amongst men than amongst women 31.4% of men and 4.9 percent of women smoke tobacco.

Every year nearly 2,000 Batswana are killed by smoking-caused diseases. Even though fewer men and women die on average in Botswana than in other middle-income countries, smoking every week kills still 27 men and 11 women.

Former drug addict and advocate Boyson Mokone supported the statement stating that quitting cigarettes was a huge challenge that he faced which even led him to use heroin because he wanted something with a much bigger effect than tobacco despite knowing the effects that come with taking both substances.

Issued by Anti-Smoking Network.