Jaipur, We are celebarating today as World No Tobacco Day, but it is irony that coming 24 hours, 8,640 people will lose their lives
due to cancer caused by use of tobacco and other tobacco products. This day
alone in our country 3288 and in Rajsthan 267 people will lose their
lives. To check this menace, the World
Health Organisation has fixed “Tobacco –a threat to Development ” as theme for
2017 . Today the whole world will resolve not to use tobacco to save its coming generation and its
development. we should also resolve to
say goodbye to smoking so that we can change the statistics in coming days. As
per available data one single cigarette
reduces up to 11 minutes of our life, while a full packet of it cause us to
lose three hours 40 minutes of our life. Every hour 137 people are dying in our country due to use of tobacco and
tobacco products while in world a person die every six second due to these products.
According to a
2010 Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) report, 32% population or 1.5 crore
people in Rajasthan use tobacco in any form, while lakhs of these people die
each year due to tobacco related diseases. Nationwide, 85% men and 20% women in
India use tobacco in any form, which include urban as well as rural women of
Rajasthan. According to the GATS survey, 10 percent girls have accepted that they use
to smoke cigarettes. The World Health Organisation report, the Global Tobacco
Epidemic warns us that the tobacco consumption among women is on the rise, and
it includes youths also. When this survey was done in 2010, 35% people were
taking tobacco in any form, and six years later, today,
there must be a huge rise in this data. Remarkably, GATS survey in India is
planned this year.
Almost 50% of
young smokers, both boys and girls, become victim of tobacco related diseases
leading them to untimely death. Average life of smokers is 22 to 26 percent
less compared to that of non-smokers. Rajasthan daily registers almost 250 new
tobacco consumers. Here, the average age of initiation in tobacco consumption
is 17 years in case of male while it’s only 14 years in females. It’s a very
serious matter that each year almost 72 thousand persons die untimely in Rajasthan
due to tobacco related diseases and leave their family helpless and destitute.
Global Adult Tobacco Survey – India 2010 report
acknowledges that tobacco use is a biggest preventable cause
of premature death and disease. Globally, 1 in each 10 adult
deaths is caused by tobacco consumption. Also, globally, 55 lakh people die
each year due to tobacco consumption. And approximately, one fifth of these
deaths occur in India. According to WHO
till the 2050 estimated tobacco consumer will be 2.2 billion.
In the World Health
Organisation (WHO) Framework Convention for Tobacco Control, 178 countries of
the world had consented to frame their own policy on tobacco control. In 2014,
the WHO appealed these countries to raise the taxes
on tobacco to save lakhs of lives annually.
Dr. Pawan
Singhal, patron of the Voice of Tobacco Victims and Associate Professor of
Sawai Man Singh Hospital, says that the tobacco industry daily unleashes new
efforts to attract youths towards the world of tobacco. With the aim of catch
‘em young, it projects tobacco products as a synonym of adulthood,
modernism, affluence, classiness and superiority.
Recent initial
researches suggest probability of partial genetic changes among tobacco
consumers which raises not only the vulnerability of that person, but also that
of coming generation towards cancer. With the consumption of tobacco products,
impotency among males are increasing while reproductive capacity among females
decreasing.
Dr. Singhal
said that tobacco increases the risk of mouth, throat, stomach, liver and lungs
cancer. Most of the tobacco related diseases are lungs and blood related,
treatments for which is costly as well as complicated. An Indian Council of
Medical Research (ICMR) study report
reveals that 50% cancer cases in males and 25% cases in females are caused by
tobacco consumption. 90 percent of it is oral cancer. Smokeless tobacco
contains more than 3000 chemical compounds, of which 29 are carcinogenic.
Largest number of oral cancer patients resides in India. Consumption of gutka,
chewing tobacco, pan, and cigarette may cause oral cancer.
The state
government should ban these types of tobacco products. While these products are
fully banned in 14 states of the country, why the same is not being imposed
here? And that too when the social organisations of the state are making
demands for it since a long time.
Sanjay Seth, Trustee,
Sambandh Health Foundation demanded the state government to implement the
Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA) strictly in the state so that
tobacco products remain out of reach of children and youths. It’s necessary for
all the modern and progressive states to implement COTPA strictly to provide a
healthy atmosphere to their citizens. Police in states like Karnataka and Kerala
has played a very commendable role in restricting the consumption of tobacco
and other tobacco products. In several states, police has played a commendable
role in announcing all educational institutions as tobacco-free to restrict
tobacco consumption among children.
He told that
each day, 5500 children in India initiate tobacco consumption and before
reaching to the age of adulthood, they become tobacco addict. Only 3 percent of
tobacco consumers are able to free themselves from tobacco addiction. So, it’s
necessary to stop children from initiation into tobacco consumption. that globally
one out of each 5 deaths is caused by tobacco and every 8 seconds one person
dies of consumption of tobacco and tobacco products. World Health Organisation
estimates 2.2 billion people consuming tobacco or tobacco products in 2050.
Notably, the
World Bank has also proposed developing countries to impose 75 to 100% tax on
tobacco to discourage its consumption.