HEALTH-ASIA: Activists Worry as More Women Puff Away

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Aug 16 2001 (IPS) - Female university students in Thailand are giving heartburn to anti-smoking activists here, because more and more of them are taking up the tobacco habit.

While the dominant reasons offered by the students range from stress to peer pressure, some find smoking satisfying to combat boredom or when they are alone, according to a survey conducted in the Thai capital by the Bangkok-based Assumption Business Administration College (Abac) from Jul. 25 to Aug. 2 this year.

“I smoke because it can relieve my stress. Smoking a cigarette gives me the same good feeling as when I drink a softdrink,” a 21-year-old student told the researchers. For another student, the desire to smoke comes “when I go to pubs and drink alcohol and because everybody smokes there”.

These smokers are part of a growing number of women in the Thai capital who have turned to this habit.

ASH Thailand, the Thai section of Action on Smoking and Health, a global anti-smoking lobby, this month reported figures showing the rapid rise of Bangkok’s female smoking population over the last two years.

There are 96,000 women smokers currently in Bangkok, 33,000 more than the 63,000 the city was able to account for in 1999, according to ASH Thailand. During the same period, it adds, the number of male smokers in the city dropped from 990,000 to 960,000.

These trends are worrisome to anti-tobacco campaigners in Thailand, because the country has had some quiet successes in curbing of new smokers in addition to strong campaigns on tobacco advertising and increases on taxes on tobacco products.

Activists say the fall in the number of male smokers shows that anti-smoking initiatives are working because most campaigns, including those addressing health risks, tend to focus on men, since male smokers are bigger in number, and the general public.

The danger tobacco use holds for women, however, are not always given enough focus even though they face more health risks and are 10 times more likely to get lung cancer than men, ASH officials say.

Women also have a higher risk than men of getting heart disease, and an equally higher risk of getting cervical cancer.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) predicts that the number of Thai women smokers will rise from the current five percent to 15 percent by 2025, while the prevalence among men would decrease, says Bung-on Ritthiphakdee, director of the Tobacco and Alcohol Control division at the Thai Health Promotion Foundation. “This trend supports that prediction.”

Such a reality, according to WHO, will be reflected in a number of other Asian countries, too.

Cigarette smoking has increased in the South and East Asian regions during the last two decades in “response to the intensive media campaigns by the tobacco industry”, states the Geneva-based health body.

“Today, a significant number of women are reported to be using either cigarettes or bidis in countries such as India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Indonesia and Thailand,” adds a WHO briefing document on tobacco use. “There has also been a parallel increase in the use of smokeless tobacco among women in the region.”

WHO attributes this pattern to the decline in smoking rates in the West, consequently prompting the tobacco industry to seek new markets and carry out aggressive marketing campaigns in developing countries, including those in Asia.

Women are among the primary targets, WHO studies have shown. “Large companies sponsor events such as women’s tennis games and disco dances to create a public image as promoters of health and relaxation. Female brands, low prices, easy availability and free samples help make these marketing strategies more successful among young women,” says a paper by the WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative.

“A rise in tobacco use by young schoolgirls is danger signal because those who start as children find it more difficult to quit later,” it states. “If the Asia and Pacific countries follow the general trend, within 15 to 30 years, there will be a major explosion in the health costs of smoking among young women. And the social costs could be enormous.”

The Thai reality illustrates this well. “Young women were attracted to cigarette brands from the West, particularly Marlboro and also menthol and ‘light’ cigarettes,” Sang Duen Suwanratsamee, who coordinates the women’s project at ASH Thailand, says, citing another study.

“Young women feel that imported cigarettes are more sophisticated and ‘upper class’ than local cigarettes,” Sang Duen adds.

Indeed, the opening of markets in this part of the world, under world trade rules and trade pressure in the early nineties, is providing new avenues for tobacco manufacturers.

In another sign of the eastward shift of the tobacco giants, the world’s second largest tobacco group, British American Tobacco (BAT), announced plans in early August to invest more than a billion dollars to build its own plant in South Korea.

One in three of South Korea’s 46 million people smoke an average of one packet a day.

“We always wanted to put down roots, commit to society and to give something back to the Korean people,” John Taylor, president of BAT Korea, said in a company statement. “The ultimate goal of BAT is to become the number one tobacco company in Korea, whilst being known and recognised for its responsible policies.”

BAT Korea’s hopes to have its new factory ready in three years, enabling it to produce 400 million cigarette packets per year.

Currently, South-east Asia has acquired the “unhealthy distinction” of having the “second highest annual per capita growth rate in tobacco consumption,” according to WHO.

That has been aided by 50 to 80 percent consumption rates among men in some Asian countries, with the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and China topping the list.

Among women smokers, WHO estimates it to be less than 1 percent to 71 percent in countries across the region, with Japan and the Philippines having high prevalence rates.

Globally, there are 1.1 billion smokers, a number that is expected to rise to 1.6 billion if smoking rates are not checked. Such an increase, adds WHO, will add to the devastating trail that smoking has left around the world — including the four million people who die annually due to tobacco use.

In Thailand, women who smoke “know the dangers of smoking, but continue to smoke because they are addicted and cannot quit,” Prakit Vathisathokit, secretary general of ASH Thailand, told a local newspaper.

To curb the spread of tobacco use, anti-smoking policies and activism need to broaden their focus — from the current effort targeting only men and the general public — to include girls and women, says Bung- on.

Anti-smoking campaigners, she adds, should also draw from tradition and social norms, including the most potent one — that “smoking among women is not socially acceptable”.