The Hindu : National : Call for stringent steps to check tobacco abuse

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 14, 2007
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National

Call for stringent steps to check tobacco abuse

Bindu Shajan Perappadan

CAPE TOWN: India has six million children, aged 4 to 14, working fulltime in the bidi industry. Bihar, Gujarat and Manipur have registered more than 40 per cent use of non-cigarette tobacco products by 13 to 15-year-old boys.

These statistics are contained in the Tobacco Atlas – a collection of statistics and research results released at the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease Conference on “Promoting lung health in low and middle income countries” here.

Lung experts while applauding India’s efforts at fighting tobacco abuse demanded more stringent measures. For “if the current smoking pattern continues in India, tobacco will kill about a million men aged between 25 and 69 by 2025,” said Judith Mackay of the World Lung Foundation, a NGO.

The Atlas indicates that India has an adult smoking population of 31.7 per cent (46.6 per cent male and 16.8 per cent women), and 9.6 per cent of its health professionals also smoke.

Among youth, 6.6 per cent of India’s boys, 1.1 per cent of its girls smoked, and 42.9 per cent of youth were exposed to passive smoking.

Pointing out that tobacco killed more than half of its regular users and was responsible for five million deaths worldwide every year, Dr. Mackay said: “tobacco will kill about 10 million people every year by 2020 and 70 per cent of these deaths will occur in the developing countries.”

Providing an insight into India’s contribution to the tobacco business, the Atlas pointed out that 0.1794 per cent of agricultural land was devoted to tobacco farming for producing 5,98,00 tonnes of tobacco and manufacturing 54,991 million cigarettes annually.

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