Saying ‘No’ to tobacco

This newspaper on Monday published a news item on page 5 which reports about an anti-tobacco campaign conducted in a school near Digboi. The organizers – the Digboi College unit of NSS – must be congratulated for conducting the campaign. Tobacco is a big menace and health hazard which must be eradicated from society. While the World Health Organisation had long ago identified tobacco as one major reason behind the rising incidence of cancer, the Government has failed to generate the required awareness in order to motivate the people to say a big “No!” to tobacco. Merely prominently printing a message on cigarette packets saying tobacco/smoking causes cancer is not enough. According to latest statistics released by the Global Adult Tobacco Survey 2 (GATS 2), every third adult in rural areas and every fifth adult in urban areas in India uses tobacco in some form or the other. The most commonly used tobacco product in India is khaini, a mixture of tobacco and lime, which is used by one out of every nine adults. The next most commonly used tobacco product is bidi, smoked by 7.7% of adult Indians. Gutkha, which is a mixture of tobacco, lime and betel-nut, ranks third (6.8%) and betel quid with tobacco ranks fourth (5.8%). The prevalence of tobacco use among men is 42.4%, while among women it is 14.2%, according to the survey. With adults gradually beginning to realise the dangers of tobacco consumption and thus giving up the habit, tobacco companies are now intentionally targeting children below 18 years by advertising products around educational institutions. It is thus important to raise awareness among school and college students against tobacco use, be it bidi-cigarette, khaini, gutkha or even the ‘normal’ tamul-paan, mitha-paan and zarda paan. One good beginning could be to motivate students to ask their parents to ban tobacco from homes.