Statement From Senator Kevin Parker on World No Tobacco Day

(Brooklyn, NY) - "I commend the member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) for having created ‘World No Tobacco Day’ in 1987 to not only glean international support on the prevalence of tobacco use and its negative effects, but to also encourage one day of abstinence by smokers and tobacco users.

Sadly, statistics show us the global tobacco epidemic contributes to approximately six million deaths per year, including slightly more than half a million deaths from secondhand smoke. More close to home, approximately 23,600 New Yorkers’ deaths are attributed to tobacco use per year.

This year, World No Tobacco Day calls on countries to raise taxes on tobacco citing that increasing the price of tobacco products is one of the most powerful and cost-effective ways to prevent and reduce its use. Today, while I remember my own beloved father whose life was cut short some years ago by a lifetime of tobacco use, I encourage all smokers and tobacco users to acknowledge WNTD, and for friends and families to support users in their cessation efforts."

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About Senator Kevin Parker

Senator Kevin S. Parker is intimately familiar with the needs of his ethnically diverse Brooklyn community that consists of 318,000 constituents in Flatbush, East Flatbush, Midwood, Ditmas Park, Kensington, Windsor Terrace, and Park Slope. He is the Ranking Member of the Senate Energy and Telecommunications Committee and the Committee on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, Assistant Democratic Leader for Intergovernmental Affairs, Founding Member of the New York Caucus of Environmental Legislators, and Chair of the Democratic Task Force on New Americans.