‘Let us strive for a drug-free Seychelles’ |01 June 2012

Each year, we come together to reiterate the message on the dangers of tobacco use, and what people in Seychelles can do to claim their right to health and healthy living to protect future generations. It is an important opportunity to work as a team to synergize our national effort to promote healthy living for our children and the young generation. It is high time we, the civil societies, government and individuals to commit ourselves to take the necessary steps to boost our efforts nationally and work as a team.

Care (Committee for Awareness, Resilience and Education against substance abuse) is already involved at improving the lives of the youth in Seychelles. Our commitment to synergise our efforts is geared towards reducing the number of young people being affected by tobacco and discouraging those thinking of starting to smoke.

Why is Care concerned? The cost of smoking to the community and Seychelles is enormous. It is proven that people who begin to smoke at an early age are more likely to develop a severe level of nicotine addiction than those who start later. Most of those who started smoking at an early age also drink alcohol and later switch to harder drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and heroin as well as other designer drugs. Do we really want to cultivate a culture where our youth are dependent on tobacco, drugs and alcohol? Do we really want to see our leaders of tomorrow, our children having a shorter life-span?

Most people who smoke start well before the age of 18. Preventing young people from becoming regular smokers is the key to reducing tobacco-related death and disease as well as the use of other drugs.

In its campaign against substance abuse Care takes a strong stand against tobacco as one of the most legal addictive drugs. We call upon our community leaders, government and civil societies to re-think policies and enforce existing regulations to safeguard our youth from this deadly habit. We are asking those using tobacco to think about World No Tobacco Day as a great time to help end this public health threat. When we improve the health of our community, we create a more positive place to live.

Support services are available to anyone who needs them. There is harm in every puff you take. Care encourages every smoker to take the opportunity to make that important decision to quit on May 31. Let us kick the habit out of our youth; let us kick the habit out of Seychelles.
Let us strive for a drug-free Seychelles.

Contributed by Care