**Author details**

*Lifestyle and Epidemiology - The Double Burden of Poverty and Cardiovascular Diseases...*

opportunities for broad scale reduction in passive smoking exposure in public

help in reducing the tides of smoking with its attendant health risk.

The health hazards of smoking and the impact on quality of life should be part of focus on tobacco control initiatives for youths. Former smokers should be involved in active antismoking campaigns and the factors that made them quit should be taken into consideration when designing anti-smoking measures.

Tobacco smoking poses a huge burden to Nigerian youths (the most populous country in Africa) and the high prevalence and various determinants were reported. Following the 2003 World Health Organisation (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), Nigeria ratified the convention agreement in 2005, and in 2015 signed into law the National Tobacco Control (NTC) Act that regulates all aspects of tobacco control including advertising, packaging, and smoke-free areas. A thriving tobacco market raises serious public health concerns, particularly for a

Careful implementation of smoke-free legislation (targeted at reversing tobacco

epidemic) beyond the national level to state and local levels may complement

In Nigeria, the first law on tobacco regulation was in the Section 6 of the Nigeria (Constitution) Order-in Council of 1954 but it was essentially designed to make provisions for licencing and payment of duties of Tobacco importation. Presently, the only law in-place which also legislates on the consumption and advertisement of tobacco is the "Tobacco Smoking (Control) Decree No. 20 of 1990". It prohibits smoking in public places including schools, public transportation, stadium, theatres, medical establishment etc. It also stipulates restrictions on tobacco advertisements and provides penalties for smokers, sellers and advertisers that do not conform to the provisions [20]. Unfortunately a smoking age limit and the restriction of cigarette sales to or by minor are not provided for in this law. The presence of the so called warnings like: "The Federal Ministry of health warns that Tobacco smoking is dangerous to health" or "Smokers are liable to die young"; appear insufficient since the minors do not understand the implications. The enforcement of the existing law is another questionable issue. The agitations on the existing inefficient anti-smoking laws in Nigeria culminated in the recent commencement of legislative process for the review of the present Tobacco Smoking (Control) Decree No. 20 of 1990. This bill sort for an act to repeal the Tobacco smoking Control Act 1990, CAP. T6 Laws of the Federation and to enact the National Tobacco Control bill 2012 to provide for the regulation and control of production, manufacturing, sale, advertising, promotion and sponsorship of tobacco products in Nigeria and other related matters. The public hearing was held at the National Assembly Complex on 15th October 2014. It was finally passed into law by the legislatures and received the presidential assent on May 27th 2015. The Nigeria National Tobacco Control Act of 2015, was passed to domesticate the WHO FCTC; however, implementation has been poor as most public places are yet to be smoke free, and no funds have been dedicated for tobacco law enforcement. Currently the bureaucratic processes involving the operationalization of the Act is ongoing. The operationalization of this Act needed to be given a deserved attention as report shows half of adolescent smokers become regular smoking adults, and a further half of this population is expected to die of tobacco-associated illnesses, further highlighting the great burden smoking in young poses and the need to end this habit [20]. Hopefully, when the law becomes effectively operationalised and implementation enforced, it will

places at the national level.

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**6. Conclusion**

country with a relatively weak health system.

Abayomi Ayodapo\* and Babalola Ibisola Department of Family Medicine, University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria

\*Address all correspondence to: aayodapo@gmail.com

© 2021 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
