Smoking: Africa fights back May 31, 2017 Image [image: buying cigarettes at a tobacco stand in Senegal]
Sylvain Cherkaoui In Senegal, merchants open cigarette packs and sell the cigarettes individually. The practice is common and legal. Marine Corniou *There are over 1 billion smokers in the world, and 80% of them are living in developing countries. Determined to prevent disaster, Senegal is taking the lead in the war against tobacco.* The air in Dakar is far from clean. It is thick with sand and dust, not to mention the exhaust from old taxis and *cars rapides* from another era. But, unlike other African cities, the capital of Senegal can boast that it is not overrun by cigarette smoke. There are no smokers outside the airport, no cigarette butts on the ground, no cigarette packs for sale in the shops. Only a few *toubabs*—the local term for a person of European descent—stroll along nonchalantly, cigarette in hand, in this city that is also home to many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and international institutions. Incidentally, it was due to spending time with foreign workers and tourists that Moussa, 27, started smoking. Speaking with me on the beach in Ngor, a fishing village located to the north of Dakar, he admits to lighting one up from time to time, out on the water in his *pirogue*. "I often take *toubabs* out fishing, and they always offer me a cigarette," he says, laughing. "But it's still pretty new around here. My father, for example, never smoked—it was too frowned upon." It's worth noting that in this country, which is 95% Muslim, smoking is not among the traditions. "In the more religious neighbourhoods, it's not tolerated. You don't smoke in front of the elderly, for example, and smoking is totally taboo for women," says Abdoulaye Diagne, a specialist in the war on tobacco and Director of the *Consortium pour la recherche économique et sociale* <http://www.cres-sn.org/> (CRES), which brings together researchers from the Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar. Indeed, in Senegal, where approximately 11% of men identify as smokers, the same is true of only 0.4% of women, according to a 2015 study conducted by the *Agence nationale de la statistique et de la démographie*, in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO). These numbers are low compared to the prevalence of smoking worldwide (approximately 25% of men and 5% of women smoke, according to a study published in *The Lancet* <http://thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(17)30867-X/fulltext> in April), or to the prevalence in certain Asian countries (around 60% of men in Indonesia and China smoke). This global epidemic, which kills 6 million people each year, still seems to be under control in African countries—with a few exceptions, notably in the Maghreb and in South Africa. But it is this low prevalence that worries anti-smoking organizations, researchers, and governments, explains Anna Gilmore, Professor of Public Health at the University of Bath and research associate at the UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies. [image: Bus in street in Senegal] "The African market poses the largest growth opportunity for the tobacco industry. And as African economies are growing stronger, the industry knows that it will be able to increase prices and profits," says the author of numerous articles on the tactics used by this industry. Chased out of wealthy countries through legal action, legislation, taxes, and advertising restrictions, the tobacco giants are stepping up their marketing strategies in developing countries. And it's working: between 2000 and 2015, tobacco use gained ground in 27 countries, 16 of which are located in sub-Saharan Africa—and Senegal is one of them. "The smoking epidemic is spreading to the poorest countries. The industry targets countries that don't have legislation in place to protect their population," says Oumar Ndao, assistant coordinator for the national anti-tobacco program at Senegal’s Ministry of Health and Social Action. Due to this combination of factors, the cigarette companies are doing just fine, thank you. They even saw their best sales volumes since 2006 in 2015, with 5.5 billion cigarettes sold (frighteningly, that's the equivalent of 770 for every person on Earth!). This success is largely due to the growing demographic in developing countries...and to how young these new smokers are. "This is clearly the goal: Africans younger than 25 years of age represent a market of 700 million people," says Oumar Ndao. Recognizing the threat, the Senegalese government took action, voting in 2014 for anti-smoking legislation that is among the strictest in the world. This legislation, which came into effect in the summer of 2016, prohibits smoking in public places, requires that health warnings be included on tobacco packaging, prohibits the sale of cigarettes to minors and within 200 metres of schools, and bans all forms of advertising for tobacco products.
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