Staff Reporter
A letter of intent was signed between COMSATS University Islamabad (CUI) and Tobacco Smoke Free Capital Project of Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination (NHRSC) as part of a national drive for making universities Smoke Free.
The Ceremony was graced by Dr. Nousheen Hamid, Parliamentary Secretary for NHSRC, and Dr. Minhaj us Siraj, Deputy DG Health, while several senior faculty members of CUI also participated in the ceremony.
Rector CUI, Prof. Dr. Raheel Qamar, in his opening address briefed the participants about the early history of tobacco including its discovery by the people of Mesoamerica, South America, Europe and the rest of the world. He also informed about the addictive properties, the harmful effects of chemicals in the tobacco. Prof. Dr. Raheel Qamar in his speech informed the august gathering about the achievements and the steps taken by CUI to make all its 7 Campuses tobacco free. The Rector said that this initiative of the government was in line with other steps like planting of trees and reduction of Plastics, to make Pakistan’s environment healthy for future generations. He remarked that like Sri Lanka, Pakistan also needs to exponentially increase the price of cigarettes to discourage their use.
Dr Minhaj Us Siraj in his brief presentation informed that Pakistan is a tobacco growing, developing country where one third of male adults use tobacco in any form and over 166,000 die of tobacco related diseases every year. He informed that Tobacco-use related burden of disease is of immense volume, in the country with little or no implementation of local tobacco control laws. He emphasized that there is a dire need to save our coming generations especially the youth from the detrimental effects of tobacco use.
