site.btaWHO Urges Bulgaria to Stop Growing Tobacco

On the occasion of World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) on May 31, the World Health Organization (WHO) calls on Bulgaria to stop growing life-threatening tobacco crops, said Dr. Mihail Okoliyski, Bulgaria's representative to WHO on Wednesday in Sofia.

The WNTD theme is "We need food, not tobacco", aiming to raise awareness about alternative crop production and marketing opportunities for tobacco farmers and encourage them to grow sustainable, nutritious crops. It will also aim to expose the tobacco industry's efforts to interfere with attempts to substitute tobacco growing with sustainable crops, thereby contributing to the global food crisis.

Although tobacco is now a "marginal crop" in Bulgaria, high subsidies continue to be given, noted economist Dr. Dimitar Sabev of the Institute of Economic Research at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS).

Sabev added that it is evident that giving up tobacco leads to prosperity for the local population. He gave an example of this is the village of Breznitsa in Gotse Delchev municipality in Southwestern Bulgaria. "There, since 2013, all villagers have switched to raspberries, strawberries, hazelnuts and mushrooms, the data show", Sabev said.

Pulmonologist Dr. Sofia Angelova pointed out that according to the 2020 data from the National Center for Public Health and Analysis, 39.4% of Bulgarians smoke, the most active being between the ages of 45 and 55. As a worrying fact, the specialist noted that children and young people use electronic tobacco devices.

Tobacco is responsible for about 8 million deaths a year worldwide, Okoliyski said. The tobacco industry is the only one in the world that kills more than half of its users, he added.