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  • - I'm doing it every day

  • after 10 minutes, after five minutes.

  • If I quit that, I feel headache very badly.

  • - I was feeling very bad about myself,

  • that what am I doing to myself?

  • - I feel like hell.

  • I feel like hell.

  • My mind will not work.

  • (gentle music)

  • - I started smoking when I was at a youth club.

  • (♪ Lost from the start)

  • - I was eight years old.

  • - Six.

  • (♪ But I'll fight til the end)

  • (♪ Ignite the spark)

  • - I'm not able to quit.

  • (♪ Stitch up the ends)

  • It has bound me to smoking.

  • (♪ Light up the dark)

  • - It's hard to continue to try.

  • (♪ Fight til the end)

  • - There are health issues, but they can be controlled.

  • A friend of mine once told me that

  • if in case you're smoking five cigarettes a day,

  • drink one glass of pineapple juice.

  • - It's having a lot of water, and then puking it out.

  • So I purify my body every day.

  • That's why I think I haven't faced any problem.

  • - I used to smoke a hard cigarette.

  • Then now I'm smoking a light cigarette.

  • - You should do running every day

  • so it will not affect your lungs a lot.

  • - It's not actually the cigarette

  • that gives you what they say the disease.

  • - No consistency between the two medical institutions.

  • One place is really proud of you

  • and acknowledges that vaping is healthier.

  • And the other place treated it

  • just like it was still tobacco.

  • There's just a lot of confusion.

  • (dramatic music)

  • - What we've found globally is that you can see very clearly

  • a very high lack of knowledge that needs to be addressed.

  • - One of the challenges that you have is

  • a population that is not informed.

  • This is what the nicotine does.

  • It's a stimulant.

  • It excites you.

  • What are the side effects?

  • We don't even know that, even as doctors.

  • And part of the problem is where the scientific community

  • thinks the general population is too dumb,

  • and instead of giving them the information

  • they give them instructions of what to do, what not to do.

  • - And we still do this in public health.

  • We exaggerate the harms or the risks or the effects

  • because we're trying to get people to change their behavior,

  • but I've learned that's not the right way to do it.

  • We need to stick to the truth,

  • and we need to give people true and accurate information.

  • - Whether it's Diet Pepsi, an e-cigarette,

  • a combustible cigarette, a piece of meat,

  • let us get into the habit of people being informed

  • about what they put into their bodies

  • and how their body interacts with it.

  • So we now need to deal with it, dismantle it,

  • and talk about raw data, scientific information,

  • and evidence.

  • - If you're going to encourage somebody

  • to either go into a nicotine replacement therapy,

  • a medicated solution, or to a wide range

  • of harm-reduction options, they clearly are going to have

  • to feel comfortable that their risk

  • is going to really come down and not just leave them

  • at the same state they would be if they were smoking.

  • They know how dangerous it is, generally,

  • but they don't know what are the best solutions.

  • Putting those in their hands

  • will actually be a big step forward.

  • - I know about the risk.

  • Just a few years ago in South Africa they started

  • putting it on the cigarette packs.

  • When you buy your packet of cigarettes,

  • it's in front of you,

  • but we just don't stop.

  • We just go on smoking (laughs).

  • - While the focus probably rightly, initially,

  • was on the higher level policy interventions

  • that government can take and that have mass-based impact,

  • there wasn't much consideration given to cessation

  • and virtually none to harm-reduction.

  • - The ideal life is nobody eats too much,

  • nobody drives a dangerous car, nobody drinks,

  • and nobody smokes, but that's not gonna happen

  • because there's always gonna be people who will be,

  • who love smoking, who love drinking, and who love eating.

  • - Never tried quitting it.

  • I've heard of my friend that tried quitting,

  • went on programs.

  • Six months later they're just back on the cigarettes again.

  • - And if we cannot eliminate the drinking,

  • eating, and smoking, then the realistic alternative

  • is to look for measures to reduce the risk of those habits.

  • - If I'm alone in the house cleaning,

  • I will look where's my cigarette?

  • That's my companion.

  • It's a friend of mine, yeah.

  • And if I don't have, I will do anything to go get one,

  • or ask the neighbor for one, or go buy me one.

  • - I don't think there was a day went by

  • when I didn't miss smoking for some reason.

  • And it wasn't the nicotine.

  • A lot of people think, well, it's because you're addicted

  • and all that sort of thing, but it wasn't.

  • It was all the other things around it.

  • The fact that it was a social thing.

  • The fact that all my friends were still smoking.

  • And I kind of missed the whole thing about it.

  • It was something that I enjoyed,

  • and I think for every day that I was giving up,

  • it felt like a loss.

  • - In many parts of the world, high associations with coffee

  • or the first meal or drinking

  • or socializing or being with friends.

  • Those things give context to what we're doing,

  • but I think the assumption that we often make

  • that there's going to be one solution

  • that can be determined by, let's say,

  • WHO sitting in Geneva and saying what is best for the world,

  • is simply not going to work.

  • - We can't go in, especially if you come

  • from a different culture, go in and tell them what to do.

  • We must develop the capacity for them to apply

  • their worldview to the problem in an ecological way.

  • To understand all of the influences,

  • and then they will then tell us what they would do.

  • How would they fix it?

  • That's what's fascinating.

  • That's what we need to find out.

  • - A lot of it has to do with

  • what has culturally been acceptable over the years.

  • What's been on the market?

  • What have people grown up with?

  • What do they know the most about?

  • And you've got a long history of

  • how people have associated with certain products.

  • - In order to be worshiping your gods,

  • you must do what gods do.

  • Many of them did use tobacco or related forms, smoking.

  • - The whole world of tobacco control needs to actually

  • start taking a more segmented approach

  • to what we're trying to do,

  • moving towards what matters for them as an individual.

  • And where do they get their identity from?

  • And the more we start doing that,

  • we're going to start finding that

  • the simple one-size-fits-all notion,

  • applying it not just to one country but to all countries,

  • needs to be broken down quite dramatically

  • if we want to make progress.

  • (♪ Ignite the spark)

  • (♪ Stitch up the ends)

  • (♪ Light up the dark)

  • (♪ Fight til the end)

  • - I thought even I will not get addicted,

  • but it becomes an addiction at the end of the day.

  • - I don't want to smoke.

  • If I had another substitute of smoking it,

  • I would not smoke.

  • - And once you've found those tools,

  • and they may not be the same as everyone else's,

  • but look for a tool that works for you.

  • And basically continue to try.

  • Never give up.

  • (♪ Fight til the end)

- I'm doing it every day

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