The growing tobacco epidemic in Palau

Abstract

In a small paradise in the Pacific, the lives of young people are gradually being destroyed by the slowly permeating use of tobacco. In the island nation of Palau, in the westernmost part of Micronesia with a total population of about 17 000, tobacco use has crept into the lives of young people by attaching itself to the traditional habit of betel-nut chewing. Betel-nut chewing has long been practised by adults in this island paradise, much as it has been throughout south-west Asia, including Viet Nam and the Indian subcontinent, but chewing with tobacco as an additive is a more recent phenomenon, dating only to the introduction of tobacco by westerners, especially since the Second World War. Insidiously, it has reached such epidemic proportions that it was one of the main topics of the Fourth Annual Conference of Women of Palau, which took place in March 1997.