The origin of World No Tobacco Day can be traced back to South America where tobacco grows. Tobacco was originally a wild plant growing in South America, and Indians living there only chewed tobacco leaves or made them into cigarettes to burn and smoke. After Columbus discovered the New World, European powers carried out large-scale colonial plunder. Since then, tobacco has spread all over the world and become a global consumer product.

Later, a large number of epidemiological studies confirmed that smoking is the primary factor leading to lung cancer. From 65438 to 0987, the World Health Organization designated April 7 as World No Tobacco Day in order to arouse the attention of the society to the harm of tobacco to health. Later, because April 7th was the anniversary of the founding of WHO, people changed the time of World No Tobacco Day to May 3rd1.

Harmful components in tobacco

The smoke produced by tobacco combustion is a complex mixture of more than 7,000 compounds, of which gas accounts for 95%, such as carbon monoxide, cyanogen hydride and volatile nitrosamines, and particulate matter accounts for 5%, including semi-volatile and non-volatile substances, such as tobacco tar and nicotine. Most of these compounds are harmful to human body, of which at least 69 are known carcinogens, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and nitrosamines, and nicotine is an addictive substance.

Secondhand smoke refers to the smoke emitted from the burning end of cigarettes or other tobacco products, which is usually mixed with the smoke emitted by smokers. Secondhand smoke contains hundreds of known toxic or carcinogenic substances, including formaldehyde, benzene, vinyl chloride, arsenic, ammonia and hydrocyanic acid. Secondhand smoke has been identified as a class A carcinogen by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Compared with the smoke inhaled by smokers themselves, the concentration of many carcinogenic and toxic chemicals in second-hand smoke is higher.