Smoking/Use of tobacco is injurious to health
Smoking, dhumapaana (drinking smoke) is practiced in India for at least 2000 years. However, tobacco was introduced to India in 16th Century.
Basics:
- More than 4,000 different chemicals have been found in tobacco and tobacco smoke. More than 60 of these chemicals are known to cause cancer.
- Nicotine is a drug found in tobacco. It is highly addictive – as addictive as heroin or cocaine. Over time, a person becomes physically and emotionally addicted to or dependent on nicotine
Statistics:
- Take it from me, in any area for that matter, India always comes within 10 countries. For example, number of HIV patients, diabetic patients, cardiac patients, crime rate, corruption index etc. India figures in the Top 10 countries in the Global list. Similarly, if you take the human rights index, health index, standard of living, infrastructure, education, etc we figure within 10 countries – I mean, bottom 10 countries. Now you can guess where we may stand in terms of number of people smoking! We stand 2nd in the world.
- There are approximately 12 Crore smokers in India
- Women smokers – don’t think the numbers are small. There are over 1.21 Crore women smokers in India. Again India stands 2nd in the world.
- Smokers in India consumed an average of 8.2 cigarettes per day
- It is estimated that over 15 Lakh people die every year in India due to smoking
- Highest number of cigarette smokers are in Jammu and Kashmir and highest number of Beedi smokers are in Uttarakhand; Chandigarh is a smoke-free city in India
What government is doing?
- They have brought an Act – Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003; short form COTPA.
- Notable provisions of this Act are –
- prohibition of smoking in public places
- ban on tobacco advertising and sponsorship
- ban on sale to and by minors and in an area within radius of 100 yards of any educational institutions
- display of pictorial health-warning labels
- Smoking is also permitted in airports, restaurants, bars, pubs, discothèques and some other enclosed workplaces if they provide designated separate smoking areas
- Gutka is banned in 2013
- Currently, there is no legal provision to ban raw and unprocessed tobacco. No country except Bhutan has banned all forms of tobacco. In short, government will have to enact a new law in order to prohibit all forms of tobacco which seems highly unlikely
- Contrary to the above points, Government also has ‘Tobacco (Development?) Board’ to facilitate tobacco growers.
What you can do about it?
If you are smoking, quit smoking forthwith.
- If you are not smoking (very good, Thank God), try to educate your friends, relatives, colleagues, peers (If they are smokers, of course) about the bad effects of smoking. You can by-heart the above statistics and convey the information to them.
What response we can expect from smokers?
If you try to educate the smokers about the ill effects of smoking or use of tobacco, you may get the following response –
Even I want to quit smoking, but it has become a habit; somehow I can’t stop
- You know one thing, too much pressure at office; smoking is the only solace to get rid of the tension.
- Life is very short; I have decided to enjoy
- Nothing will happen, see our friend is smoking for the last 30 years; he is healthier than you!
- Smoking is one of the reasons to die; if it is written in our fate for early death, no one can stop
- Stop preaching; take care of your health! Eating sweets is more dangerous than smoking!
- The day you stop eating sweets; I will stop smoking
- I smoke Beedi; it is much better than cigarette. Do you know, 10 beedi’s is equal to one cigarette? [#why not? Government should honor you for your Research work]
- Peer pressure, Late working hours; too cold weather [#Oh! You replace sweater with cigarette, great idea]
- Party means and includes smoking! You are in which century? Be Cosmopolitan and modern, dear!
- 11. It is a corporate pass time [ # Hello: don’t be so sober; tell bluntly that Corporate smoking zone is a birthing suite for gossip. To be frank, not just the birth, even gossip attains adulthood there!]
- 12. Interestingly most of the vital corporate decisions are taken over smoking! [# is it great! Like Café Coffee Day; we can conveniently say that ‘A Lot can happen (by) Over Smoking!]
What will be your response to it? Either you will express/ murmur that “I have expressed the problems of smoking; if you won’t listen; what can I do. Can’t help. Do what you feel like, only when you face theproblem, you will realize, etc., etc.’
Am I right? This would be your response right? My suggestion – please don’t do that way and leave the smoker alone! Kindly be patient and repeat the statistics before him, persuade him to quit smoking!
Will you find it difficult to repeat the same thing again and again?
Come on friend, please learn from Mr. Rahul Gandhi. If required watch his blockbuster show video (interview with Arnab) on YouTube. If you watch once/twice, you will master the ‘Art of Repeating’. Hello Rahul, your art of repeating may help many of my friends (or their friends) to quit smoking!
CAclubindia
