Istafa Ali
Murtaza Solangi, who is acting as the Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting, said on Tuesday that smoking was not an addiction but rather a killing habit that put people’s lives at risk around the world.
In a speech at an event meant to teach kids about how smoking is bad for them, he said that smoking was also dangerous to people’s lives, just like how it hurts the world.
At the beginning, he said it was important to ask some important questions about smoking.
“Smoking is a disease that kills someone every six seconds on average,” Solangi said. “Plus, smoking is a habit that kills one person out of every ten.”
He talked about how terrible smoking was and said that 100 million people died because they smoked in the 20th century and that smoking kills about 5 million people every year around the world.
He said that if people kept smoking like they are, the number of deaths from smoking would rise from five million a year to eight million a year by 2030.
He called those who have fought against smoking “the anti-smoking heroes” to show his appreciation for their work.
He said that because of business needs, smoking tobacco wasn’t talked about with other harmful drugs. This should stop now, he said.
He insisted that raising taxes on the tobacco business was the only way to get people to stop smoking, especially young people.
He said that tobacco use, like climate change, was making people’s daily lives worse and costing the health sector more money.
Solangi promised to keep helping the people who are working to stop people from smoking.
