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The 7th National Conference on Tobacco or Health : New Generation Protests Tobacco Harms
Date: August 4-5, 2008 Venue: Miracle Grand Convention Hotel, Vibhavadi Rangsit Road, Bangkok

Background : The 7th National Conference on Tobacco or Health was at the exchange of knowledge stage for tobacco participant networks and other partners concerned with tobacco consumption control in Thailand. This conference is held yearly aiming to discuss tobacco control directions and to drive those directions following the WHO-FCTC indicated by the yearly tobacco slogan and its campaign which normally is intensely launched in May of each year.

In 2008, WHO issued the slogan Tobacco-Free Youth to country members and international communities which emphasized Youth. Thailand embraced this approach as well and provided similar directions, creating its own slogan, New Generation Prevent Tobacco Harms. This tobacco slogans meaning written in Thai shows an intention to focus on the tobacco consumption control of young people, targeted to prevent them from cigarette harms. Another purpose of this slogan was to enable others by demonstrating the power to protect teenagers from smoking harms, aiming to control tobacco consumption in adolescent groups.

The adolescent group is a target group of smoking prevention because teenage smoking trends increase with the impact of advertisement and promotion produced by tobacco industries. Tobacco industries have new commercial strategies or tactics focused on young people as their major group for expanding initial smoking markets. For this reason, it is rather hard to control the growing smoking prevalence among adolescents. The cigarette surveillance in adolescents reported by WHO which derives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the USA (2000-2007) shows smoking impacts on youth (aged 13-15) in various countries including Thailand. The level of teenage smoking in Thailand compared with those in other countries was a major concern requiring surveillance and that tobacco control performance should be done seriously.

The challenge mission of tobacco consumption control among youth requires a collaboration between social institutes, public and private sectors, and other participants including mass media, in order to provide cigarette-free-environments, to fight new tactics from the tobacco industries, to persuade teenagers to participate in youth development and to prevent potential cigarette dangers according to this years slogan on World No Tobacco Day. To provide the stage of this conference is a part of the mission set by the host and affiliated sectors participating in tobacco consumption control with Thai adolescents aiming to protect them from cigarette harms and to encourage them to be good citizens of Thailand.