Jamaica: Ministry of Health seeks assistance from Adventist Church in national smoking cessation plan

June 30, 2014 – St. Catherine, Jamaica…Nigel Coke/IAD

The Ministry of Health, as part of its overall plan to have a smoke-free society has engaged the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Jamaica to assist in its smoking cessation (quitting smoking) drive with their “Breathe Free” program.

Jamaica’s Minister of Health Dr. Fenton Ferguson delivers his message to mark World No Tobacco Day, on May 31, 2014 at the Family of God Seventh-day Adventist Church in Spanish Town, Jamaica. Image by Nigel Coke/IAD

In his message to mark World No Tobacco Day on May 31, 2014, at the Family of God Seventh-day Adventist Church in Spanish Town, St. Catherine, Minister of Health Dr. Fenton Ferguson stated that a big part of the Government Tobacco Control program is the area of smoking cessation and improving access to such services.

“While some persons might believe that our position is just an anti-tobacco one, it is a pro health,” said Ferguson. “While the National Council on Drug Abuse, the Heart Foundation and the Jamaica Cancer Society have been working assiduously, we recognized that in Jamaica today, the Seventh-day Adventist Church has one of the largest networks relative to the tobacco cessation programs, and this has been for a long time.”

The health minister shared that his team has engaged in discussion with the leadership of the Adventist Church with a view of coming to a Memorandum of Understanding to move forward.

“Our objective in all of this,” Ferguson continued, “is that while controlling tobacco use we must be able to work with the public to ensure that cessation take place.”

According to Ferguson, the Adventist network of churches across the country tied into the government’s network and primary health centers, will be able to make a big difference in cessation aspect of tobacco control.

Minister Ferguson commended the Seventh-day Adventist Church globally and locally for its focus on healthy lifestyle, not only against tobacco, but the holistic – spiritual, mental, physical and social – being of mankind.

In its message for the day, the Seventh-day Church challenged its members to continue the “No Tobacco” thrust started in 1863 in an effort to protect health and save lives.

“We have a sacred responsibility to encourage non-smokers not to start the habit and assist smokers to quit the habit,” said Bancroft Barwise, treasurer of the church in Jamaica.

Tobacco smoking is the primary cause of many preventable illnesses and premature deaths, accounting for many of the over 3,000 cancer deaths annually in Jamaica.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reveals that every six seconds across the globe, someone dies of some tobacco-related illness. It estimates that the global yearly death toll as a result of tobacco use is currently 6 million (including 600,000 caused by exposure to secondhand smoke). This is expected to rise to 7 million by 2020 and to more than 8 million a year by 2030. It is predicted that by the end of the 21st century, tobacco would have killed one billion people. For every death caused by smoking, approximately 20 smokers are suffering from a smoking related disease.

Since 1864, the Seventh-day Adventist World Church has been in the forefront of the anti-tobacco campaign with its “Breathe Free” program (formerly known as The Five-Day Plan) as a major part of its smoking cessation program. The program has been successful in Jamaica, church leaders said.

Because the problem of smoking is a lifestyle one, the “Breathe Free” program is a holistic one involving mental, social, spiritual and physical preparations – a combination of group therapy, nicotine detoxification and lifestyle changes with a strong spiritual component.