World NoTobacco Day - 31 May

Tags: Important Days

World No Tobacco Day is celebrated every year on 31 May with the aim of making people aware about the harmful effects of tobacco consumption.

An overview of the news

• The theme for World No Tobacco Day 2023 is “We need food, not tobacco”. 

• The World Health Organisation honours governments, organisations and individuals every year for their efforts and contributions to prevent tobacco use.

History of the day

• The World No Tobacco Day initiative was adopted by WHO in 1987.

• After this, resolution WHA 42.19 was passed in 1988, in which 31 May was issued as 'World No Tobacco Day'.

• Recently the Global Burden of Disease has published a study on the number of smokers around the world.

Smokers in India

• According to this study, there were around 20 million smokers in the age group of 15-24 in India in 2019. This is the second largest number of tobacco smokers worldwide.

Global scenario

• According to this study, the number of smokers increased to 1 billion in 2019.

• Tobacco use killed 7 million people.

• Among new smokers, 89% had become addicted by the age of 25.

• There are 155 million smokers worldwide aged 15-24.

• Top 10 countries with the highest number of smokers

• The top 10 countries are China, India, Indonesia, USA, Russia, Bangladesh, Japan, Turkey, Vietnam and Philippines.