Each year on May 31, World No Tobacco Day highlights the health, social, economic, and environmental consequences of tobacco use.

This year’s theme, “Unmasking the appeal: Countering nicotine and tobacco addiction,” emphasizes the growing and troubling trend of the tobacco and nicotine industry targeting children and adolescents.

Tobacco use remains a leading risk factor for Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory illnesses, and diabetes.

These conditions continue to place enormous strain on families, communities, and already burdened health systems.

Globally, tobacco use has declined significantly, from 1.38 billion users in 2000 to around 1.2 billion in 2024-reflecting the impact of stronger policies, higher taxation, and comprehensive implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control; however, progress remains uneven and insufficient to meet global reduction targets, with one in five adults still using tobacco.

As public health measures advance, the industry continues to reinvent and repackage its products, including new and emerging nicotine and tobacco products to sustain addiction and recruit new users, including millions of adolescents, thereby sustaining addiction, recruiting new users, and risking a new wave of nicotine dependence that could undermine hard-won gains in tobacco control.

Products such as e-cigarettes or vapes, water pipes, shisha, nicotine pouches, heated tobacco products, etc., are often marketed as modern, fashionable, and less harmful alternatives.

Behind these appealing branding and marketing lies a deliberate effort to attract a new generation to nicotine addiction through disinformation.

We cannot allow a new generation to become dependent on nicotine, a highly addictive stimulant that can affect brain development and increase vulnerability to other forms of substance dependence.

The story of Audu, a 21-year-old from a community near the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, illustrates the profound impact of early tobacco addiction.

After developing lung disease at a young age, his illness was attributed to early use of tobacco products.

The resulting health consequences disrupted his education and prevented him from fully participating in typical youth experiences.

Current statistics highlight the severity of the issue.

Globally, at least 40 million children aged 13 to 15 currently use at least one tobacco product.

Over 15 million adolescents already use e-cigarettes,....