From 25-28 July 2017, 03 C3T members took part in a training workshop on Engaging the Media in Effective Tobacco Control Advocacy. The workshop, organized by the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of Earth (ERA) – Nigeria in partnership with the Africa Tobacco Control Alliance (ATCA) and the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids (CTFK), held at the Coconut Grove Hotel, Accra in Ghana and had as participants, tobacco control Journalists from seven countries in the West African sub-region; Nigeria, Ghana, Gambia, Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon.

The aim of the training was to deepen the knowledge of journalists on tobacco control-related issues, as well as build the capacity of tobacco control stakeholders in media advocacy.

Participants shared experiences on the tobacco control situation in different countries, industry maneuvers to curb tobacco control policies, best strategies to stimulate media coverage and use of social media in effectively reaching a wide audience.

The fight against smoking has been long and rocky in Cameroon. With continuous interference from the tobacco industry, it had been extremely difficult to make progress in the struggle.

But some Members of Parliament in Cameroon are trying to make this be a story of the past. After visiting patients at the Jamot Hospital in Yaoundé, the law makers held a high level advocacy workshop on Wednesday 05 July 2017. The MPs, gathered under the umbrella of the Network of Parliamentarians for Tobacco Control, met at Cameroon's National Assembly to discuss tobacco control regulations in the country.

Opening the deliberations, the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, Hon. Emilia M. Lifaka highlighted the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) which Cameroon ratified in 2006. She urged the MPs to work hard so they could come up with fruitful recommendations that could help bring a draft tobacco control bill to the law makers.

Discussions at the seminar focused on the different types and components of tobacco products and their dangers to humans, the FCTC as a major tobacco control tool and a means to achieve the SDGs in the Cameroon, as well as activities carried out by the civil society (the Cameroonian Coalition for Tobacco Control) to push for better tobacco control policies in Cameroon.

After the discussions, the following recommendations were made;

They also visited patients suffering from tobacco-related illnesses at the Jamot Hospital in Yaoundé.

From that event, the following recommendations were made:

• Strengthen the regulatory framework through the adoption of the law
• Develop recommendations at the highest level to bring the law to parliament
• Prevent interference from the tobacco industry
• Strengthen tobacco control in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals
• Include tobacco control in development plans
• Prioritize tobacco control in the country
• Prohibit smoking in public places
• Support the efforts of the civil society to contribute to the adoption and implementation of effective tobacco control policies
• Raise awareness on the harmful effects of tobacco, starting with children in the nursery and primary school
• Adopt a policy of establishing a license to market tobacco products

On 26 June, the World commemorates the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking. A 2011 study shows that tobacco products could act as gateway drugs, opening the door to use of illicit drugs. Nicotine, the researchers found, makes the brain more susceptible to cocaine addiction. The finding suggests that lowering smoking rates in young people might help reduce cocaine abuse.

Scientists have long recognized that cigarettes and alcohol raise the risk for later use of illicit drugs like marijuana and cocaine. In a recent national survey, over 90% of adult cocaine users between the ages of 18 and 34 had smoked cigarettes before they began using cocaine. Researchers suspected that nicotine exposure might increase vulnerability to cocaine. However, no one had identified a biological mechanism. A team of scientists, led by Dr. Eric Kandel at Columbia University and supported by NIH's National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), set out to investigate.

In Science Translational Medicine on November 2, 2011, the scientists reported that mice given nicotine in their drinking water for 7 days showed increased activity in response to cocaine. The animals also had changes in a brain signaling process called long-term potentiation.

Earlier research had shown that expression levels of a gene called FosB in the brain’s striatum was linked to cocaine addiction. In the new study, investigators found that 7 days of nicotine administration caused a 61% increase in FosB expression. When given a dose of cocaine, these mice had an additional 74% increase in FosB expression compared to mice treated with cocaine alone. Reversing the order of the drugs didn’t lead to a boost in FosB expression.

Past studies found that cocaine modifies DNA structure through a process called histone acetylation. The changes affect FosB expression. The researchers tested whether nicotine increases FosB expression in the striatum by altering DNA in a similar way. They found that 7 days of nicotine treatment significantly increases histone acetylation. Nicotine does this, they discovered, by inhibiting molecules that reverse acetylation. By manipulating these molecules through other methods, the researchers showed that they could enhance or inhibit the effects of cocaine.

“Now that we have a mouse model of the actions of nicotine as a gateway drug, this will allow us to explore the molecular mechanisms by which alcohol and marijuana might act as gateway drugs,” Kandel says. “In particular, we would be interested in knowing if there is a single, common mechanism for all gateway drugs or if each drug utilizes a distinct mechanism.”

If nicotine works similarly in people, effective smoking cessation efforts might reduce the risk of addiction to cocaine and other illicit drugs.

Source: National Institutes of Health (NIH)

There is a spiteful relationship between tobacco and poverty. In many ways, tobacco and poverty are part of the same vicious cycle. Across the globe, smoking is generally common among the poorest segments of the population. These groups, already under financial stress, have little disposable income to spend on cigarettes. Consumption of tobacco adds directly to financial stress and hinders all forms of development. In low-income countries like Cameroon, the World Health Organization estimates that as much as 10% of household income can be spent on tobacco products, leaving less money for food, education, housing, and clothing.

There are costs to smokers that go far beyond the money that they pay to buy cigarettes. Smokers develop many more illnesses than non-smokers, which places enormous cost stresses on any country’s health care expenditures, and makes it more difficult to afford health coverage. As a result, in places where individuals purchase health insurance, those costs are proportionately much higher than they are for non-smokers. Smoking-related illnesses take workers out of the work force, adding to the indirect costs of tobacco and creating further downward pressure on the economy… Tobacco is a threat to development.

Furthermore, working in the tobacco industry can trap people in poverty. In underdeveloped countries like Cameroon, many small tobacco farmers are often forced to sell their crop at a low, fixed price and have few choices but to over-pay the tobacco companies for fertilizer, seeds, technical advice, and other items. Trapped in a type of indentured servitude, they are added to the lists of those victimized directly or indirectly by the tobacco economy.

The damage inflicted by tobacco use holds back the human potential of entire societies. Ending the tobacco epidemic will realize gains above and beyond improved public health.

Together, tobacco and poverty create a vicious circle. In most countries, tobacco use tends to be higher among the poor. Poor families, in turn, spend a larger proportion of their income on tobacco. Money spent on tobacco cannot be spent on basic human needs such as food, shelter, education and health care. Tobacco can also worsen poverty among users and their families since tobacco users are at much higher risk of falling ill and dying prematurely of cancers, heart attacks, respiratory diseases or other tobacco-related diseases, depriving families of much-needed income and imposing additional costs for health care. And, although the tobacco industry provides jobs for thousands of people, the vast majority employed in the tobacco sector earn very little, while the big tobacco companies reap enormous profits.

They came in their numbers; smokers around the city of Yaounde. The venue was the Cite Verte District Hospital, and the event was a free medical consultation for smokers. This activity organised by the Cameroonian Coalition for Tobacco Control (C3T) ran from Monday 22nd to Tuesday 23rd May, 2017 and marked the beginning of activities to commemorate World No Tobacco Day 2017.

The main objective of this campaign was to let smokers know the extent of damage their smoking has caused them, so they could follow up their treatment. The Cameroonian Coalition for Tobacco Control seized the opportunity to sensitize patients of the hospital on the dangers of smoking and enlightened them on why they must not make an attempt to start.

On their part, visiting patients expressed gratitude with the initiative and expressed their desire to see many more people come for the consultations. Some patients confirmed knowledge of the damage smoking causes them but regretted the fact that they are just so glued to cigarettes that they find it difficult to stop. On standby was a medical professional giving tips on how smokers can make up their mind and eventually quit.

Commemorated this year under the theme “Tobacco; A Threat To Development”, the 30th World No Tobacco Day is an opportunity for stakeholders to highlight just how tobacco consumption can hinder the development of a family, a community and the nation. It is the wish of C3T that as patients got consulted, they will take measures to redress their smoking complications so that they can be strong again and be able to work for the development of Cameroon.