January 2025 Newsletter

The January 2025 issue focuses on the importance of cessation services and community support in helping adult smokers quit. The lead story reports that ARI and its Sindh partner organizations held meetings with adult smokers, vapers, and tobacco users in Karachi East, Hyderabad, Karachi South, Thatta, Khairpur, and Sukkur. ARI’s Punjab partners also held community awareness sessions in Sargodha, Faisalabad, Multan, Bahawalpur, Dera Ghazi Khan, and Lahore.

The newsletter explains that Pakistan has more than 30 million tobacco users, including 17 million cigarette smokers. Smoking kills around 160,000 people every year in Pakistan, while the economic cost of smoking-related diseases and deaths is estimated at Rs615 billion per year. Many smokers in the meetings said they want to quit, but lack of access to cessation services is a major obstacle.

The issue also includes personal stories of smokers. One story is about Zafar, a 54-year-old businessman who has tried several times to quit smoking but started again because of social pressure and strong cravings. Another story is about Abdul Qadir Baloch, a university student who started smoking in 2023, tried vaping, but found it did not help him quit.

The newsletter also reports that Pakistan has the highest annual smoking death toll in South Asia, according to an analysis of the Global Burden of Disease 2024 report. It says Pakistan’s smoking death rate is higher than both the South Asian and global averages, even though the country has made some progress in tobacco control.

Another important part of the issue discusses Sweden and Norway as examples of countries where smoke-free progress has been linked with the use of snus and other lower-risk nicotine alternatives. Sweden has reached a very low smoking rate, while Norway’s smoking rate has also dropped sharply as snus use has increased.

The issue also highlights that lack of smoking cessation services remains a missing link in Pakistan’s tobacco control. It calls for a nationwide cessation strategy, cessation clinics in public hospitals, trained healthcare professionals, affordable nicotine replacement therapy, and cessation counselling as part of routine healthcare. The final article reports Global Action’s support for the FDA’s proposed rule to reduce nicotine in cigarettes to non-addictive levels, while also calling for lawful lower-risk alternatives for adult smokers.

The main story highlights ARI and its partner organizations holding meetings with adult smokers, vapers, and tobacco users in Sindh, along with community awareness sessions in Punjab. The story says that many smokers want to quit, but lack of access to cessation services is a major barrier. It also stresses that community support, proper guidance, and practical quit-smoking services are important for a smoke-free Pakistan.