Former forensic pathologist Dr Stephen King is urging young Saint Lucians to stop smoking, citing a local study that found poorer outcomes among hospital patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who smoked both cannabis and tobacco.
“Do not mix cannabis and tobacco,” King said, stressing that the warning applies to imported and locally grown tobacco. He pointed to nicotine’s addictive effects and said he was concerned that young women were also adopting smoking habits he had seen among young men.
The study, published in the West Indian Medical Journal, reviewed the records of 100 patients admitted with COPD to Victoria and St Jude hospitals between January 2014 and June 2016. Of those patients, 70 reported smoking both substances and 30 reported smoking tobacco alone. The group that smoked both had poorer outcomes. Researchers were comparing how patients who already had COPD fared after admission.
At a press conference in July 2026, Chief Fire Officer Ditney Downes said all COPD emergencies handled by the Saint Lucia Fire Service up to that point had involved male patients.
He urged men, particularly young men, to stop smoking and take the disease seriously.
Downes said the service responded to 13,170 ambulance calls in 2025, including 843 respiratory emergencies. He attributed 95 percent of those respiratory emergencies to COPD.
By the July briefing, crews had responded to 6,762 ambulance calls in 2026, including 572 related to COPD.
COPD restricts airflow and can cause a persistent cough, wheezing, breathlessness, and fatigue. The US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute says women can develop severe COPD before age 55.
It also notes that older women with the disease may experience more severe breathlessness than older men, even with less lifetime smoking exposure.
King called for an Untold Stories documentary on COPD to be shown again, urging young people to listen to the men who described what it was like to struggle for breath. Many of those men have since died, he said.
“That’s a message from the grave to those that are still living to watch your habits,” King said.
