Everything for the "Smoke-Free Campus"...

Üsküdar University took the first step towards becoming a "Smoke-Free Campus" last January and continues its educational activities within this scope. World Health Organization Director and Green Crescent Science Board member Prof. Toker Ergüder made a presentation titled "Prevention and and Tobacco Industry of Tobacco Addiction and Use of Tobacco Products, and Tobacco Industry " to the students of the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences within the scope of the project carried out with the aim of a Smoke-Free University. Ergüder stated that they are looking for young health professionals to help them in this fight.

“More than 20 million people smoke tobacco in Türkiye”

Making striking remarks on the increase and decrease of smokers, World Health Organization Director and Green Crescent Scientific Committee member Prof. Toker Ergüder said: “First of all, we should start reducing smoking with our relatives. We must warn everyone around us. Support us in smoking addiction as doctor candidates. As doctors, you have to live in a smoke-free environment. The increase in smoking addiction is highly seen especially between the ages of 18-25. In Türkiye, 125,000 people die every year due to smoking. In our country, 25% of all deaths are caused by smoking. In fact, smoking rates are decreasing all over the world, however, these rates are increasing in our country. Another problem we have in Türkiye is the increase in smoking rates, especially among women. Especially among female doctors, female nurses and female teachers, smoking rates are much higher than the general population. In men, smoking rates decrease as education and status increase, while in women, smoking rates increase as education and status increase. Since cigarette companies know all this very well, a cigarette company will offer you the first cigarette maybe a just outside of this university, maybe in a cafeteria and if you can say no to them, you will be saved from being addicted for the rest of your life.”.

“The main reason for the spread of tobacco is the tobacco industry”

Mentioning the concept of tobacco control, Ergüder emphasized that deaths due to smoking would decrease thanks to this control. Ergüder said: “Use of tobacco is the most important preventable cause of death in the world and in our country. We can express this situation as tobacco control because the most important and preventable public health problem in Türkiye is use of tobacco. The main cause of the tobacco epidemic and its spread is the tobacco industry. Our struggle is not with smokers, all smokers are people who became addicted at a young age and trapped by the tobacco industry. Our biggest fight is with the tobacco industry. For example, there is no industry behind it to spread malaria, but there is an industry behind it to spread this tobacco germ. This industry unfortunately tries to make a profit by making everyone addicted. There are very effective methods to prevent the epidemic. We must implement these methods.”.

“Exposure to cigarette smoke causes serious illness”

Expressing the structure and harms of cigarettes, Ergüder said: “It is the form of tobacco, which is a poisonous plant, compressed and wrapped in a thin paper. It contains 3 substances. These are carbon monoxide, nicotine and tar.  There are at least 70 carcinogenic substances among them and there are about 7 thousand chemicals. 99% of lung cancers are caused by smoking. The main addictive substance is nicotine. Others are substances that cause cancer. Cigarette smoke contains more than 6,000 harmful chemicals, 50 of which are known to be carcinogenic. Both the smoking cigarette and the cigarette they are exposed to as a passive smoker cause disease in people's bodies. When you take the cigarette smoke from your mouth, it goes to the lungs and mixes with the blood from there. It is then discharged with urine as nicotine. It causes cancer and various diseases in all the organs it goes to.”.

Üsküdar News Agency (ÜNA)