Governments across the globe consider various methods to reduce the consumption of tobacco. Prevention can take the form of policy-level measures, such as increased taxation of tobacco products; stricter laws (and enforcement of laws) regulating who can purchase tobacco products; how and where they can be purchased; where and when they can be used (i.e., smoke-free policies in restaurants, bars, and other public places); and restrictions on advertising and mandatory health warnings on packages. In order to reduce the consumption of existing users, help is offered to quit, fines are imposed on public smoking.
In order to reduce the consumption of tobacco, having an objective and a national agency are the most crucial elements. From the graphs we can observe that by 2018, most of the countries around 174 out of 196 have specified objectives to control tobacco consumption. However, only 61 countries have national agency to work in order to achieve those objectives.
Over past few years, we can observe that awareness programs are increasing. Statistics of ban on advertising display the same. We can observe gradual increase in all forms on ban on advertising for tobacco. Also by 2018, 164 countries out of 196 countries ban advertising on national television and radio. Amongst all categories, ban on advertisement at the point of sale is present at only 100 countries.
Tobacco advertisements play a huge role in why people smoke cigarettes or use any other form of tobacco smoking. Thus, it is important for the country to take some strict actions against this kind of promotion. For the years 2007 and 2008, we can see that there a lot of countries that do not have any kind of ban on tobacco advertising which included superpowers like the USA, Russia, and many other small countries. But with the awareness increasing around tobacco usage with the time, countries like Russia, Canada, Argentina, and many other countries have imposed a complete ban on the advertisement of tobacco products. Also, there are a lot of countries that have had some kind of direct-indirect ban which includes India, China, Australia over the span of 10years.
Legislations were introduced in many countries to control advertisements of tobacco products. Emphasis is made on increasing the Health warnings in-order to create awareness among people. One such measure is advertising about harmful effects on cigarette packages. Initially many countries in Africa didn't have any such law. Later on, many countries started introducing them. We can also observe that, Europe has had such a ban since 2007 itself.
We went ahead and observed that the countries had placed special bans on smoking indoors inside a category of institutions such as hospitals, education facilities, restaurants, offices and so on and how these regulations were introduced throughout the years.
In this Sankey Chart we can observe how the number of countries fluctuate with the function of imposing bans.
Even on the first look on moving through the years we can observe that the number of countries which have regulations, increases as we move with time, since the number of "Legislation available" values increase. We can also observe that certain countries have introduced "Designated smoking zones" inside buildings.
As we reach 2018 mark, it is a delight to see that only 52 countries have no regulations on smoking ban inside premises, which was 79 countries in 2007.
When we look at the breakdown of number of countries taking fines for the violation of laws for the time period 2007-2018, we see that the number is increasing by the each passing year.
In the visualizations we show the total number of countries imposing fines by the year.
Here we see that in 2007, only 74 countries had fines on the violation of laws. In the year 2010, it rose to up to 112 countries taking fines on the breach of smoking laws. And by the end of the year 2018, this number climbed to 146. Thus the number of countries doubled by 2018.
This numbers also reflect that as the general awareness grew around the harmful effects of tobacco consumption, more and more countries made laws to make the place smoke-free which will eventually reduce the tobacco usage.
Looking at the map, it is clear that in 2008, most countries did not provide any help or any cessation services of which costs were not covered. However, by 2018, many countries started a nicotine replacement theory center and along with that, they also provided cessation services in which costs were covered. And in some countries, even a National quit line was started to encourage people to talk about consumption and how they can quit tobacco consumption. Thus, more and more countries are providing different services like nicotine replacement theory, National quit line, cessation services like health clinics or other primary care facilities, hospitals, office of a health professional, the community to quit tobacco usage.
To better understand the aids that are being provided by the countries for their citizens to provide harmless alternatives to subdue the effects that tobacco has on the human body.
This is a radial plot which shows us how the number of countries that has the provision of legally providing nicotine substitutes, which is the active component of tobacco.
From the graph we can see that most of the countries have started legally providing nicotine alternatives to their citizens. We can also observe that countries in the continents of Asia and Africa, are the most reluctant to legalizing the nicotine alternatives.
Efforts are made to reduce consumption by making it more difficult to access tobacco in various countries. Few methods include but are not limited to increasing taxes, restricting places of trade, age restriction etcetera. In the table above, rating was given based on affordability of tobacco with the higher being most difficult to afford. In 2020 and 2016, South Sudan has the highest affordability rating making it the most difficult to get tobacco there. Similarly, in 2010 & 2018 Eritrea and in 2015 & 2012 Malawi stand highest.