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“Tobacco use is the single largest avoidable health risk. It is the leading cause of preventable cancer, with 27% of all cancers attributed to tobacco. With Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan, we are proposing bold and ambitious actions on prevention to reduce the use of tobacco. We have set a very clear objective – to create a smoke-free generation in Europe, where less than 5% of people use tobacco by 2040. This would be significant change compared to the around 25% today. And reducing the use of tobacco is crucial to reach this goal. With no tobacco use, nine out ten cases of lung cancer could be avoided.
“Many, if not the majority, of smokers have attempted to quit at some point in their lives. The latest Eurobarometer[1] figures speak for themselves: if we manage to support smokers trying to quit to follow this through successfully, we could already halve the smoking prevalence. On the other hand, three out of four smokers who quit, or tried to stop, did not use any help.
“The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the vulnerability of smokers, who have up to a 50% higher risk of developing severe disease and death from the virus, a fact that has triggered millions of them to want to quit tobacco. But quitting can be difficult. We can do more to help, and this is precisely what this year’s World Tobacco Day is about – committing to quitting.
“We need to increase the motivation to leave smoking behind. Stopping smoking is a win-win situation at all ages, always. We need to step up our game and ensure that EU tobacco legislation is enforced more strictly, especially as regards sales to minors and campaigns on giving up smoking. It also needs to keep pace with new developments, be sufficiently up to date to address the endless flow of new tobacco products entering the market. This is particularly important to protect younger people.
“My message is simple: quitting is saving your life: every moment is good to quit, even if you have been smoking forever.”
[1] Eurobarometer 506. Attitudes of Europeans towards tobacco and electronic cigarettes. 2021
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