G-ADDICTION Youth Citizenship is the youth taking responsibility, having things to say… and tobacco heavily weighs on the health of the French population. Besides chronic, heart, and lung diseases, it is the leading cause of preventable death. It is responsible for nearly one in eight deaths in our country.
The attempt to quit is fraught with challenges but also victories. Participating in Tobacco-Free Month, quitting smoking for a month increases your chances of success, multiplying by five the likelihood of quitting for good. Better for health and less money wasted! A challenge to take up or continue beyond the month of November.
No matter how many cigarettes are smoked each day and the period of smoking, quitting tobacco is followed by immediate benefits for the ex-smoker. Just 20 minutes after putting out the last cigarette, blood pressure and heart rate return to normal.
After 8 hours, the amount of carbon monoxide in the blood is halved, allowing cells to regain normal oxygenation. One day after the last cigarette, the body no longer contains nicotine. Two more days, and breathing becomes easier. And two weeks after quitting, the risk of heart attack begins to decrease. To ensure all benefits are in place, efforts must be maintained: after 3 months, coughing and fatigue decrease, breathing improves, etc.
Quantib Mattob, director of G-ADDICTION: “We will continue to fight, at our modest level, against a tobacco industry that has declared war on public health, that has taken some of our loved ones, that makes our young people addicted, and that thrives on ultra-harmful substances. In France, lobbies are powerful, but the determination, passion, and mobilizing capacity of youth are even stronger.”
