Can Hun Sen Help Cambodia Quit Smoking?

[geovalin]

Phorn Bopha, VOA Khmer

10 February 2016

PHNOM PENH—

Not content with his own success in giving up smoking, Prime Minister Hun Sen wants the rest of Cambodia to kick the nicotine habit too.

The long-serving leader announced with much pride back in 2014 that he had managed finally to kick the habit that he picked up as a young soldier.

“After joining the army, I become a smoker. I smoked at that time in order to reduce my intensity while I was working, and to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes and insects,” Hun Sen said in a Jan. 28 Facebook post, reminiscing about the 1970s, when he fought in Cambodia’s jungles for the Khmer Rouge.

“Then the smoke started to taste good and it was addictive. After that, I suppose, I was a smoker.”

The post was characteristic of a Hun Sen’s new public relations approach, which has seen him replace hours-long strongman diatribes with friendly updates about the comings and goings of Cambodia’s prime minister and first family.

He is now using Facebook to launch a sort of public health campaign, urging his followers, and all his countrymen, to extinguish their last cigarette.

“In this post I’m asking my Cambodian people to quit smoking, especially youth,” the Facebook post read, this part in English. “I used to be a heavy smoker for more than 40 years. I’ve tried 12 times to quit smoking. Finally, I quitted smoking about 22 months now [sic].

“I hope Cambodian people can do it for their own health.”

Tobacco, which causes cancer of the lungs and other forms of the deadly disease, is a serious health problem in Cambodia. About 10,000 deaths a year can be attributed to smoking or chewing tobacco, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). That means that, on average, more than 28 people in the country die each day for their habit.

One of those feeling the effects of this scourge is Meach Sokhoeun, 49. She doesn’t smoke, but expends large quantities of her energy worrying about her husband Sar Kimso, a one-pack-a-day smoker.

She’s already convinced him to cut down from two or three packs daily, but stopping completely has proven difficult, despite a doctor warning him more than a decade ago that he may have lung disease.

“I told him to stop, but he won’t stop. He can stop for several months, but then he starts smoking even more,” she said, adding that the impact on the health of 73-year-old Kimso—who started smoking at 13—was visible.

“I want him to quit because he has this white skin on his head like dandruff. His legs and arms are all covered with itchy skin, like he has a skin disease…. His teeth are decayed.”

Then there’s the financial cost. Sokhoeun said her husband gets 300,000 riel, or about $74, each month as an armed forces veteran. But 4,000 riel per day, or about 120,000 for the month, is spent on Kimso’s smoking habit.

In Cambodia, very little tax is levied on cigarettes, making smoking comparatively cheap. Still, the adult population manages to spend more than $200 million a year on tobacco products, according to Dr. Yel Daravuth, a national professional officer with the WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative.

Alongside the well-known health problems linked with smoking, Dr. Daravuth said some Cambodians spend about 10 percent of their income on the habit.

“We’ve seen that it’s economically damaging to families, as well as to the nation,” he said.

But other countries have managed to reduce significantly the number of smokers. Dr. Daravuth said practical measures like raising taxes on cigarettes, restricting the areas in which smoking is permitted, and promoting awareness of the dangers of smoking could all help more Cambodians to quit.

LONG ARTICLE

read more: http://www.voacambodia.com/content/can-hun-sen-help-cambodia-quit-smoking/3184842.html

[little mary sunshine]

Hope He is able to reduce the smoking, especially in the youth

In the country...good luck!

[Krataiboy]

Nothing here about the irresponsibility of tobacco companies which spend millions of dollars to deliberately target potential smokeers in underdeveloped countries who receive little education about the dangers in inherent in the habit. General Prayuth, who was quoted in the media yesterday as saying he did not have the power to stop people smoking, should change his tune and follow Hun Sen's example.

Of course the hardest people to convert are smokers who are already hooked - not so much on tobacco, as the article implies, but on the nicotine in cigarettes. But it can be done. The success of anti-smoking campaigns in Britain and many other enlightened developed countries have drastically reduced the appalling toll of death and disease generated by this filthy, anti-social habit and saved billions of dollars in related health and welfare costs in the process. There is no reason why Cambodia and Thailand cannot achieve a similar breakthrough - if the will is there among the countries' leaders.

Those who bang on about the rights of smokers - who definitely deserve sympathy for their addiction rather than criticism - should read the latest research which shows that people like the old Cambodian lady in the story with a chain-smoking husband have a much higher risk than previously thought of contracting lung and other diseases from being a "passive smoker". Children - born or unborn - are particularly vulnerable to the diseases caused by ingesting or inhaling chemicals from cigarettes and must be the best incentive for anyone to kick the tobacco habit.

Edited February 12, 2016 by Krataiboy