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Toward a Global Strategy to Combat Smoking: The 5th World Conference on Smoking and Health

The World Conference on Smoking and Health meeting during July 1983 to discuss the scientific social and political aspects of smoking and its control around the world focused on 3 main themes: the problems of smoking and women smoking and children and smoking in developing countries. To examine the various aspects of these and other themes sessions were organized under 5 categories: the health consequences of smoking smoking cessation public information and public education the economic consequences of tobacco and legislation and political action. Overviews of the main themes and the 5 topic categories were presented in plenary sessions. The popularity of smoking has grown enormously among women worldwide. In the US the percentage of adult males who smoke exceeds that of adult females by fewer than 10 percentage points. 3 decades ago the gap was close to 30 percentage points. In the 1980s in the US lung cancer has overtaken breast cancer as the leading cancer cause of mortality in women. This results not from improvements in the treatment of breast cancers but rather from the epidemic of lung cancer in women. The average age of initiating smoking in the US is now about 16 years. There is general agreement that an individual is highly unlikely to start smoking after age 21. The concept of "immunizing" youngsters against smoking lies at the heart of this most primary of smoking disease. Several alternative approaches to preventing the onset of smoking by children were discussed at the Conference with greatest interest centering around the use of youths to influence their peers not to smoke. Smoking rates have leveled off or are falling in the developed world but they are increasing rapidly in developing countries. Cigarette companies have directed much of their marketing effort at this potentially substantial growth market and the profitability of tobacco farming in many developing countries is causing tobacco to compete successfully with staple food crops. Several Conference delegates reported that people in developing countries have little awareness of the health consequences of smoking. Other concerns discussed at the conference include passive smoking i.e. the nonsmokers inhalation of tobacco smoke in the air nonsmokers rights movement and civil disobedience. 20 recommendations were adopted by the Conference delegates. An additional 15 action oriented and somewhat bolder recommendations were also made and endorsed by the International Liaison Committee on Smoking and Health.