By Laura MacInnis
GENEVA — Water pipes and smokeless tobacco products have gained in popularity among young people worldwide, many of them unaware that they are as harmful as cigarettes, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.
In a warning issued on the eve of World No Tobacco Day, the United Nations agency said those smoking flavored tobacco through water pipes, once predominant in the Middle East and now found in trendy cafes across Europe and North America, inhale dangerous amounts of carbon monoxide, nicotine and tar.
“The idea that bubbling smoke through water is going to somehow reduce the toxins is completely false,” Douglas Bettcher of the WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative told a news conference.
Water pipes often lack standardized health warnings used for cigarettes, which “may reinforce the assumption of relative safety,” according to a WHO report entitled “Tobacco: Deadly in Any Form or Disguise.”
Yet a growing body of evidence confirmed waterpipe smoking caused lung disease, cardiovascular disease and cancer, it said.
Bettcher also warned that smoke-free products, generally consumed by chewing, sucking or pressing small pieces of tobacco between the gum and cheek, were “no safer than the other smoked tobacco products.”
Most popular in India, Scandinavia and the United States, the WHO said smokeless tobacco was highly addictive, and has been linked to cancers of the head, neck, throat and esophagus as well as serious dental conditions.
The agency noted the popularity of cigarette alternatives has led to worrisome high tobacco consumption rates among girls, particularly in Middle Eastern and other countries where smoking among women is considered uncouth.
While adult men now generally smoke more than women, WHO spokeswoman Marta Seoane said the addiction of a new generation of girls could boost the numbers of those afflicted with disease or dying from tobacco in 15 years’ time.
“The global public health problem is going to be multiplied, because those rates are going to be so much higher for future female smokers,” Seoane said, recommending that countries broaden tobacco control efforts and launch awareness programs geared toward girls.
The WHO launched its Tobacco Free Initiative in 1998 to focus international attention on tobacco, which kills five million people a year.
Some 128 countries have ratified its 2003 tobacco control treaty, which came into force a year ago, and bans advertising, promotion and sponsorship of tobacco products.
Given the wide use of new products, Tobacco Free Initiative Director Yumiko Mochizuki-Kobayashi said the WHO forecast that 10 million people would die from tobacco-related health conditions every year by 2020 was “very, very under-estimated.”
Mochizuki-Kobayashi said countries needed to ensure the full disclosure of the ingredients and health effects of all tobacco products, and not just cigarettes.
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