Principal Research Officer at the Ghana Health Service, Divine Darlington Logo, has revealed that by June 2018 Shisha and electronic cigarette will be banned in Ghana.
He explained that, Ghana will join Rwanda, Kenya, and Tanzania as African countries that have banned the wind-pipe tobacco.
“First time we did a study to cover electronic cigarette and Shisha we were surprised to hear that the youth are now moving away from the traditional tobacco use in cigarettes to Shisha and the electronic cigarette which we were not aware off,” he said.
However, from the research conducted by the Ghana Health Service it has been indicated that the prevalence of Shisha smoking stands at 5.3 per cent higher than traditional tobacco use which in the cigarette which is 2.8 percent.
Meanwhile, electronic cigarette smoking prevalence stands at 8.5 percent among the youth.
The research which is yet to be released according to Mr. Logo identified the prevalence among especially the youth between the ages of 13 to 15 years.
This has made the call for the ban necessary based on WHOs concerns about the harmful effects of Shisha tobacco on human health.
According to a WHO Advisory note, Shisha is dangerous, damaging, and addictive to human lives, .
It is said to contain many toxic chemicals found in cigarette smoke, although Shisha smokers are at a higher risk of suffering the same types of diseases caused by cigarette smoking.
Like cigarette, it contains nicotine, tar, carbon monoxide and heavy metals such as arsenic and lead
The smoke that emerges from the water-pipe contains numerous toxicants known to cause lung cancer, heart diseases etc.
The WHO Advisory note also revealed that the smoke from one water-pipe smoking session is almost equivalent to puffing 100 cigarettes.
“Shisha use is more harmful than the cigarette when you puff one is like you have smoked one full cigarette stick,” said Dr. Logo.
Mr. Darlingnton Logo is therefore worried the trend is becoming extremely dangerous.
