The World Health Organisation (WHO) and STOP, a global tobacco industry watchdog, have launched ‘Hooking the next generation’, a report highlighting how the tobacco and nicotine industry designs products.

WHO said this in a statement made available on  Thursday.

According to it, the launch comes just ahead of World No Tobacco Day, which is marked on May 31. On this day, WHO is amplifying the voices of young people who are calling on governments to protect them from being targets of the tobacco and nicotine industry.

“Hooking the next generation,” a report highlighting how the tobacco and nicotine industry designs products, implements marketing campaigns and works to shape policy environments to help them addict the world’s youth,” it said.

It said that the report showed that globally an estimated 37 million children aged 13–15 years use tobacco, and in many countries, the rate of e-cigarette use among adolescents exceeds that of adults.

The statement said that in the WHO European Region, 20 per cent of 15-year-olds surveyed reported using e-cigarettes in the past 30 days.

“Despite significant progress in reducing tobacco use, the emergence of e-cigarettes and other new tobacco and nicotine products present a grave threat to youth and tobacco control.

“Studies demonstrate that e-cigarette use increases conventional cigarette use, particularly among non-smoking youth, by nearly three times,” it said

WHO boss Tedros Ghebreyesus said that history was repeating, as the tobacco industry tried to sell the same nicotine to the children in different packaging.

Mr Ghebreyesus said these industries are actively targeting schools, children, and young people with new products that are essentially candy-flavoured traps.

”How can they talk about harm reduction when they are marketing these dangerous, highly-addictive products to children. These industries continue to market their products to young people with enticing flavours like candy and fruit. 

“Research in the U.S. found that more than 70 per cent of youth e-cigarette users would quit if the products were only available in tobacco flavour,” he said.

(NAN)