Tobacco now kills some five million people each year.This death toll could double to reach 10 million by 2020 if countries do not implement a historic tobacco control pact aimed at curbing tobacco-related deaths and diseases.

Only ten days before the World Health Organization (WHO) celebrates this year’s World No-Tobacco Day, the World Health Assembly unanimously adopted the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).

The Convention, adopted by the 192 members of the Assembly, is the world’s first-ever attempt to promote a tobacco-free environment within a legislative framework.

Four years in the making, the FCTC has been a priority in the WHO’s global work to stem the tobacco epidemic. While smoking rates are declining in some industrialized countries, they are increasing, especially among the young, in many developing countries. These will account for over seventy percent of the projected death toll resulting from tobacco (WHO).

To come into force, the Convention must be signed by at least 40 countries. The Convention’s main focuses are:

- Imposing restrictions on tobacco advertising, sponsorship and promotion.

- Establishing new labeling controls.

- Establishing new clean indoor air controls.

- Strengthening legislation to clamp down on tobacco smuggling.

Contrary to the popular misconception that placing curbs on tobacco smoking will have a negative impact on economies depending on the product, recent economic analyses done by the World Bank show that the social and health costs of tobacco far outweigh the direct economic benefits that may result from tobacco cultivation and manufacture (WHO).

World No-Tobacco Day

This year, the theme for World No-Tobacco Day is tobacco-free film and fashion. “The WHO is calling on the entertainment industry, in particular the world of film and fashion, to stop promoting a product that has devastating effects on public health and to start promoting a tobacco-free society” (WHO).

The influence actors who smoke in films have on teenagers has been shown by a study carried out by researchers at Dartmouth Medical  College  in  Hanover , New England . The study, which analyzed 178 films, revealed that fans of actors who play characters who smoke on screen are much more likely to smoke themselves or be pro-tobacco than fans of non-smoking actors.

The study showed that teenage fans were up to three times more likely to smoke or be pro-tobacco if their favorite actors smoked in at least three films. After concluding the study the researchers said:"We believe this evidence strongly suggests that media portrayals of tobacco use by popular movie stars contribute to adolescent smoking."

An estimated 80% of adult smokers began smoking before the age of 18. Each day, approximately 5,000 youngsters under the age of 18 smoke their first cigarette.

Smoking: A Worldwide Epidemic

According to the WHO, there are 1.1 billion smokers around the world. That makes up around one third of the adult global population. Smoking causes more death and disability than any other single disease, accounting for 7% of all deaths, with about 13,700 people dying each day of tobacco-related illnesses.

The WHO’s projection that states that tobacco will result in more than 10 million deaths annually by the year 2020 would make it the leading cause of death and disability, thus becoming more lethal than HIV, tuberculosis, car accidents, maternal mortality, suicide and homicide combined.

There is an estimated 42% of men and 24% of women that smoke in developed countries, while in developing countries 48% of men and 7% of women smoke. There are 800,000 smokers and an estimated one million people who die annually from tobacco in developing countries.

In the  United States, smoking is the leading cause of preventable death leading to more than 440,000 deaths annually. The health care costs associated with tobacco-related illnesses in the U.S are more than $75 billion.

In developing countries cigarette sales have increased by 80% since 1990. In Africa the annual rise in the rate of smoking is estimated to be 2.5% higher than in other developing countries. It is anticipated in the next 20 years that tobacco-related diseases will become the number one cause of death in Africa.

Exposure to Second Hand Smoke

One of the most sordid facts about smoking is that not only does it affect the person who chooses to smoke, exposure to second hand smoke can and does affect non-smokers, especially children whose bodies are still developing. Parents who smoke around their children increase their risk of occurrence of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), middle ear infections and cause an increased incidence of respiratory diseases, such as bronchitis, pneumonia, asthma and lower respiratory tract infections.

Second hand smoke is also a cause of lung cancer and coronary heart disease in adults who are lifetime non-smokers. Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is listed by the National Institutes of Health as a human carcinogen. Therefore exposure to ETS is a causative factor of human cancer. Around 3,000 deaths caused by lung cancer occur each year among adult non-smokers. Studies also show that ETS is the cause of 35,000 deaths from ischemic heart disease in the U.S each year.

Smoking in Children

The global tobacco epidemic is predicted to prematurely claim the lives of some 250 million children and adolescents, a third of who are in developing countries (WNTD). Over 6.4 million children living today will die prematurely due to smoking. Studies have shown that children can become addicted to tobacco after smoking only a few cigarettes.

According to a report in the journal Tobacco Control, a study performed on nearly 700 schoolchildren in the U.S with an average age of 12 showed that a quarter of the children who smoked had cravings within two weeks of beginning to smoke, some even had symptoms of addiction within days of starting to smoke.

Women who smoke during pregnancy place their babies at an increased risk of miscarriage, low birth weight, and intrauterine growth retardation.

Smoking is a worldwide epidemic and all possible measures should be taken to raise awareness of the international impact of tobacco use and to promote a tobacco-free environment. World No-Tobacco Day is an excellent opportunity to do so.

is a universally accepted that smoking has many serious health and life hazards amongst which is lung cancer. These hazards affect not only the smoker himself but those around him as well. Shari`ah has stressed the importance of being in good health to the extent that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) even advised Muslims in all ages to strike a balance in eating and drinking so as to evade any harmful effects on the health. He advised having dates, being hot in nature, with cucumber, as it (cucumber) has a cooling effect.

It is clear that cigarettes contain many harmful ingredients, for example, carbon monoxide, nicotine, tar and benzene vapor.

Therefore, smoking is harmful to the smoker as well as those around him. In his book, “Ninety Nine Harms of Smoking”, Muhammad Abdul Ghaffaar Al-Afghani stated that smoking results in many diseases which doctors have explained. These diseases number about ninety nine.

Doctor Salahuddeen Abdur-Rab An-Nabi, a neuro-surgeon in Cairo says: “When a person becomes enslaved to the habit of smoking, it affects his health badly to the extent that it has a direct effect on his heart. As a result his heart beat and blood circulation become unstable and he experiences drowsiness from time to time due to the shrinking of his brain arteries. Sometimes, specially at an old age, a smoker suffers from high blood pressure and angina. Similarly, his digestive and respiratory systems are harmed and he loses his appetite. He is also afflicted with a kind of cough known as the smoker's cough. When his nervous system is affected, the smoker feels a prickly sensation, a numbness in his limbs and also a pain in the nerves.'

In the annual conference of the American Doctors Council which took place in Chicago 1966, the main focus of the conference was the harms of smoking. Doctors, who were aware of the role of smoking in lung cancer, became alarmed when they heard that the least harm smoking causes is that it arouses anxiety. Doctor Edward Kweller Hammond, head of statistics in the Cancer Association of America said: “Verily, lung cancer which is caused by smoking cigarettes is not so serious in comparison to the injury caused by smoking with other bodily systems.” It is stated in the ninth edition of "World of Knowledge" magazine that the time has come wherein it has become necessary to expose all the harms of smoking. It should also be realized that these despicable substances even cause death.

It is also necessary to elucidate the harms of smoking in hope of saving many intelligent and educated youth, who will be astonished on how much has been written regarding this topic. In the above-mentioned magazine, we can read the following: "Cancer Caused by Smoking": This fatal illness is the culmination of many illnesses which are the result of thin blood and other sicknesses which are related to the blood vessels. All these are connected to this loathsome substances. However, lung cancer is the most likely outcome of smoking.

Lung cancer was a very rare disease but the end of this century witnessed a high rise in its occurrence, primarily in men and thereafter in women. In the beginning of the sixties, the death rate due to lung cancer increased compared to before. Smoking also yields other health hazards besides its general and specific economic harms.

Proof for the prohibition of smoking:

Smoking did not exist in the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) but our great religion of Islam has laid down general principles from which many laws are derived. From these principles, Muslim scholars have come to the conclusion that smoking is prohibited (Haram).

In the Qur’an, we read: “be not cast by your own hands to ruin; and do good. Lo! Allah loveth the beneficent.” (Al-Baqarah:195). Smoking causes fatal sicknesses, for example, lung cancer, tuberculosis, etc.

In another verse, Almighty Allah says: “And do not kill yourselves.” (An-Nisaa’: 29). The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is reported to have said: “Whomsoever drinks poison, thereby killing himself, will sip this poison forever in the Hell-Fire.”

Cigarettes consist of many poisonous substances and furthermore, the smoker indulges in a slow suicidal act by smoking this poison.”

Almighty Allah knows best.