Over the past decade, tobacco smoking using a waterpipe (hookah, narghile, shiha) has become a world-wide epidemic, with current use rates approaching those of cigarettes in many populations. It is particularly prevalent in the Arab world, and marketing efforts have played to the cultural and social aspects of waterpipe use. A nascent but growing evidence base unanimously points to the high potential for deleterious health effects of waterpipe use, including nicotine addiction. At the same time, waterpipe tobacco smoking remains peripheral to tobacco control efforts. The time is now ripe to raise the dialogue on this issue by having an international conference dedicated purely to the waterpipe.
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Developing Impactful Awareness Raising Campaigns towards Reducing Tobacco Consumption
Training Course on ‘Packaging, Labeling and Pictorial Health Warnings on Tobacco Products’
World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), the 3rd session of the Conference of the Parties
Another initiative for tobacco control, Tobacco Advertising, Promotion and Sponsorship (TAPS) monitoring, has been launched by The Network for Consumer Protection to monitor advertising and promotional activities and patronization of different campaigns under the guise of corporate social responsibility by tobacco companies. The Network Executive Coordinator Nadeem Iqbal, while highlighting the significance of the initiative, said tobacco promotion and sponsorship was marginally an unattended subject by regulators in Pakistan. Monitoring of TAPS by The Network is funded by Bloomberg Global Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, implemented by the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids (TFK) and International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases (The Union).