European Cancer Organisation shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable death in the EU
- It claims 700,000 lives annually; and
- accounts for 27% of all cancer cases.
The ECO team and the Association of Association of European Cancer Leagues, European Society of Cardiology, and Smoke Free Partnership met with European Commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare Olivér Várhelyi, and European Commissioner for Climate, Net Zero and Clean Growth Wopke Hoekstra to pave the way for a smoke-free generation by 2040.
New proposals include
- A new Tobacco Excise Duty Own Resource (TEDOR)
- The Proposal for a Revision of the Tobacco Taxation Directive
ECO supports the initiatives as well as the close collaboration between EU institutions and civil society to reenergise European efforts on cancer prevention.”
Richard Price, Policy Director at European Cancer Organisation, shared European Cancer Organisation‘s post, adding:
“Walking to school with my daughter, its frankly depressing to see so many teenagers filling their lungs with noxious and addictive chemicals from pink, or lurid green, or other cynically marketed, plastic devices. All in service to that age-old adolescent search to look ‘cool’ and ‘adult’. There will always be people ready to make money out of that, whatever the negative consequences to their customer. Its like we really haven’t learnt anything since Doll and Hill 1954. We’re busy replacing one life-long addictive health-harming habit with another.
Or worse. Teachers (and possibly parents as well) seem to be taking a more lax attitude to vaping than to smoking as far as I can see. Kids at least had to hide behind the school bike sheds when I was in short trousers. This is all done in the open. All because an impression has formed that vaping is “harmless”. It isn’t. The studies just keep on pointing it out. But public perception and government policy aren’t keeping pace.
It was therefore a pleasure to be invited to join this week’s meeting with Commissioners Wopke Hoekstra and Oliver Várhelyi to look at new means to both achieve a tobacco free generation, but also close the gap on a predatory new addiction industry.
More to come from ECO and partners on this. A great thanks as well to the European Society of Cardiology and others for the collaboration on this. Action on tobacco and vaping is just one of the many ways the new European Cardiovascular Health Plan and Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan can work in lockstep with each other to achieve significant public health goals.
We need not just a tobacco free generation, but a vape free generation too.”
More from European Cancer Organisation on OncoDaily.