World No Tobacco Day 2025: Medicinal Uses of Tobacco For Various Ailments, Know History, Significance, and More

World No Tobacco Day 2025: Every year on May 31st, the world commemorates World No Tobacco Day (WNTD), a critical movement led by the World Health Organisation (WHO). This day is a global call to action, raising awareness about the terrible health, environmental, and socioeconomic implications of tobacco use while advocating for effective tobacco control measures.

World No Tobacco Day History

World No Tobacco Day originated in 1987, when the World Health Assembly, the WHO’s decision-making body, enacted Resolution WHA40.38, designating April 7, 1988, as a “world no-smoking day.” The next year, in 1988, Resolution WHA42.19 designated May 31st as the annual World No Tobacco Day, which has since become a global rallying point for tobacco-related public health measures.

Over the years, WNTD has developed to meet new challenges, including traditional tobacco products, e-cigarettes, and novel nicotine delivery technologies. Each year’s theme focuses on different aspects of the tobacco epidemic and the tobacco industry's manipulative tactics.

World No Tobacco Day 2025 Theme

This year’s theme is “Bright Products. Dark Intentions. Unmasking the Appeal,” which targets the tobacco industry’s developing youth-oriented efforts. According to the WHO, these companies aggressively manipulate the young generation through product design and marketing.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has identified significant industry methods for luring youngsters into using tobacco and nicotine products. These include the widespread availability of over 16,000 sweet or fruity flavours designed to mask the harshness of tobacco, pervasive social media marketing campaigns with influencer partnerships that glamorise vaping culture, and the development of sleek, tech-inspired gadgets that make vaping appear modern and fashionable.

World No Tobacco Day Significance 

Tobacco is one of the biggest preventable causes of death worldwide, especially among nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke. This day serves to:

• Educate the public on the serious health concerns linked with tobacco and nicotine products.

• Expose tobacco firms’ aggressive and often deceptive marketing techniques for attracting new users, particularly children and adolescents, through enticing flavours, slick designs, and social media influence.

• Advocate for the implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), a legally enforceable convention that includes measures such as advertising prohibitions, plain packaging, smoke-free zones, and higher tobacco taxes.

• Encourage and provide resources to those battling with tobacco addiction to quit.

• Draw attention to the considerable environmental impact of tobacco cultivation, production, and waste.

Side Effects of Tobacco

Tobacco includes about 7,000 compounds, with at least 250 proven to be hazardous and more than 70 known to cause cancer. Its ingestion, in whatever form, has serious and sometimes fatal implications for almost every organ in the body. Some of the most severe adverse effects are:

Cancer

Tobacco use is the leading cause of lung cancer, and it can also lead to malignancies of the mouth, throat, voice box, oesophagus, stomach, liver, kidney, pancreas, bladder, cervix, and colon.

Respiratory Diseases

It is the primary cause of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis, resulting in irreparable lung damage and significant breathing problems. It also exacerbates asthma and increases susceptibility to respiratory infections.

Cardiovascular Diseases

Tobacco use raises the risk of heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, blood clots, and peripheral artery disease, which can lead to heart attacks, strokes, and even limb amputations.

Diabetes

Smokers are 30-40% more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes and face more severe consequences if they already have it.

Oral Health Issues

It causes gum disease, tooth loss, foul breath, and increases the risk of oral cancer.

Reproductive Health Problems

Tobacco smoking can lead to male and female infertility, an increased risk of ectopic pregnancy, early birth, low birth weight, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

Weakened Immune System

It reduces the body’s ability to fight infections, making people more susceptible to sickness.

Medicinal Uses of Tobacco

Despite the serious health concerns connected with tobacco usage, one fascinating and frequently forgotten part of its history is its traditional medicinal uses throughout civilisations. Tobacco has a fascinating history as a therapeutic agent, ranging from ancient indigenous customs that valued it as a “holy herb” with curative virtues to medieval European pharmacopoeias that investigated its topical and internal uses. Tobacco has also been used in traditional Chinese medicine to promote “Qi” (vital energy), relieve pain, eliminate dampness, reduce swelling, detoxify, and kill insects, as well as treat ailments such as arthralgia, carbuncles, furuncles, scabies, and snakebites.

Topical Applications

Solutions to treat boils, skin diseases, wounds, bruises, and sprains.

Ingestion (in diluted forms)

Teas are used as laxatives, emetics, expectorants, to treat intestinal worms, migraines, fainting, and dizziness.

Antiseptic

Applies to cuts to reduce infection and bleeding.

Snuff (inhaled)

For medicinal and ritualistic purposes, such as relieving congestion.

It is important to recognise that these ancient applications frequently entailed precise preparation methods and limited dosages, which are far removed from the modern, addictive, and highly hazardous forms of tobacco use. Nicotine, the primary active element in tobacco, is a very toxic chemical, and the great majority of other substances found in tobacco smoke are carcinogenic and dangerous.

As a result, these medicinal uses come with a warning that ingesting tobacco in its traditional or recreational forms is clearly harmful to health and has serious, life-threatening hazards.