World No Tobacco Day

World No Tobacco Day is observed around the world every year on May 31 It is meant to encourage a 24-hour period of abstinence from all forms of tobacco consumption across the globe. The day is further intended to draw global attention to the widespread prevalence of tobacco use and to negative health effects, which currently lead to 5.4 million deaths worldwide annually. The member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) created World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) in 1987. In the past twenty years, the day has been met with both enthusiasm and resistance across the globe from governments, public health organizations, smokers, growers, and the tobacco industry.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has selected "Gender and tobacco with an emphasis on marketing to women" as the theme for the “World No Tobacco Day” on 31 May 2010. Controlling the epidemic of tobacco among women is an important part of any comprehensive tobacco control strategy. There has been a sustained effort on the part of tobacco companies to target women customers as the number of their male consumers has been declining. The tobacco companies have launched marketing campaigns that represent cigarette smoking as feminine and fashionable. This is to counter the public opinion that smoking is socially unacceptable and unhealthy.