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WORLD NO TOBACCO DAY 2011
May 31 has been designated as World No Tobacco Day by WHO in an effort
to spread awareness of its harmful effects and reduce the number of people smoking or about to start smoking. Tobacco has been one of
the worst discoveries of mankind causing innumerable deaths each year
that are only escalating with passing time. It is estimated that by 2030, annually 8 million deaths worldwide will be tobacco-related.
World No Tobacco Day 2011 highlights the critical importance of ensuring full
implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the first international public health treaty that provides a
comprehensive approach to reduce the considerable health and economic
burden caused by tobacco. Developed in response to the globalisation of
the tobacco epidemic, it is one of the most rapidly embraced treaties in
the history of the United Nations. It was adopted by the World Health Assembly on May 21, 2003 and entered into
force less than two years later, on February 27, 2005. More than 170 of the 193 member states of WHO are parties to it.
The WHO selects "The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control" as the
theme of the World No Tobacco Day 2011, falling on May 31 (Tuesday). On
World No Tobacco Day 2011, and throughout the following year, WHO will
urge countries to put the treaty at the heart of their efforts to control the global epidemic of tobacco use. By heeding WHO's call,
countries will enhance their ability to significantly reduce the toll of
tobacco-related diseases and deaths in line with their treaty obligations.
World No Tobacco Day in India
Around 2000 deaths each day in India and 5 million per year globally are
courtesy of tobacco. 4 out of every 10 cancers in India are due to tobacco. In a country, where more than 70% of the population resides in
the villages where chewing tobacco , smoking a bidi or hookah are common ways of ‘entertainment’ or passing free time, it really is no
surprise that tobacco causes 3 lacs new cases of Oral cancer
each year in India alone. Every 6 seconds someone on the Earth dies due to tobacco.
Tobacco is consumed in various forms in different countries right from
being used to massage gums in a country like India, to smoking in bidis and cigarettes to being
chewed by itself or along with betel leaves. While the forms are different, the effect is the same – Oral
Cancer. Cancer of the gums, lips, cheeks, palate, and tongue are the various disguises it assumes in the process of causing permanent damage
to the consumer. Slow and steady yet not stealthily, it gives multiple signs on its way to death to stop using it. Nevertheless, these are more
often than not, ignored by people. Most often these signs come so late that stopping tobacco consumption will not affect the outcome in
anyway. The damage has been done. And thus the stress on preventing
people from getting addicted to it and give it up before onset of tell-tale signs.
Starting from May 31, 2009 the World No Tobacco Day, all tobacco products
in India will carry graphic pictorial warnings. Given the horrifying big picture, health
authorities are hoping that newly introduced pictorial warnings like skull and cross bones, scorpion and diseased
lungs on cigarette packets and other tobacco products in India, will prove
effective as a deterrent especially when it comes to young people. The law to ban smoking in public places in the
India introduced last year.
No smoking at public places
Ban on smoking at public places all over the country comes into effect from
2nd October 2008. Violation of the ban, imposed under the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003, will attract a fine of up to Rs.200.
Smoking will be prohibited at all places to which the public has access, including auditoriums, health institutions, government buildings, restaurants, courts, public conveyances, public transport, stadiums, railway stations, bus stops, workplaces, shopping malls, refreshment rooms, discotheques, pubs and airport lounges. The ban will not cover open spaces.
Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss has welcomed the Supreme Court order declining to stay the Centre’s notification prohibiting smoking.
He said he had personally written to Governors, Chief Ministers, Health Ministers and Members of Parliament to ensure effective implementation of the ban.
The law clearly defines the duties and responsibilities of the owner, manager,
proprietor, supervisor and anyone in charge of a public place so that he or she could enforce these provisions. In large hotels and restaurants having more than 30 rooms or 30 seats and airports, a provision for a separate smoking area is made. Public places would have to identify the individuals empowered to enforce the law, issue challans or collect fines. |
Starting from May 31, the World No Tobacco Day, all tobacco products
in India will carry graphic pictorial warnings.
No smoking. Smoking is killing nearly a million people a year in India. Now ban on smoking at public places.
The Bollywood, actor Shah Rukh Khan, said in an interview that the thing he hated most about himself was his inability to stop
smoking. "I know I have to. I know as a role model I shouldn't be sending that
message," he said. "It's a horrible habit. I have to work harder to stop."
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Recent findings from the first nationally representative study of smoking in
India found that this country is in the grip of a smoking epidemic likely to
cause nearly a million deaths a year starting in 2010. There are 120 million
smokers in India, half of them younger than 30, the study found. India has a
larger population of smokers than any other country in the world except China.
The research was conducted across the country by a team of 900 field workers
from India, Canada and Britain and the results published online in the New England Journal of Medicine last week.
The study found that more than half of smoking-related deaths would be among
poor and illiterate Indians. It also offered some medical surprises about the
way smoking worsens diseases, researchers said. According to the findings, for
example, 40 percent of tuberculosis cases in India were due to smoking, since smoking converts the disease in the lungs more quickly.
In the year 2010 alone, smoking will cause close to a million deaths in India, and 70% of those deaths will occur in men and women ages
30 to 69, according to Prabhat Jha, M.D., of the Center for Global Health at the University of Toronto, and colleagues, who made those predictions in an
article published in New England Journal of Medicine.
Dr. Jha and colleagues studied smoking in a nationally representative sample of 1.1 million Indian
households. They compared the prevalence of smoking among 33,000 deceased women and 41,000 deceased men with the prevalence of smoking among 35,000 living women and 43,000 living men.
. Typically Indians smoke bidis, a sort of mini-cigarette wrapped in the leaf of another plant and which contains only about 25% of the tobacco in a U.S. cigarette. In the U.S., tobacco use accounts for at least 30% of all cancer deaths and 87% of lung cancer deaths, according to the American
Cancer Society. In 2007, about 168,000 (or one in three) cancer deaths will be caused by tobacco use, the society added.
Tobacco use was responsible for nearly one in five all-cause deaths per year, an estimated 440,000 deaths in the U.S., during 1997 through 2001, according to the society.
Among the findings in India:
Roughly 5% of women ages 30 to 69 were smokers as were 37% of men in that age group. For women ages 30 to 69, smoking was associated with a doubling of the risk of death from any medical cause (risk ratio 2.0, 99% CI 1.8 to 2.3) and for men in that age group, smoking was associated with a 70% increase in the risk of death from any medical cause (RR 1.7, 99% CI 1.6 to 1.8).
The most likely cause of excess mortality among smokers was tuberculosis (RR 3.0, 99% CI 2.4 to 3.9 for women and 2.3, 99% CI 2.1 to 2.6 for men).
Smoking was associated with an eight-year reduction in median survival for women and a six-year reduction in median survival for men.
Assuming the associations between smoking and excess mortality were mainly causal, smoking among people ages 30 to 69 is responsible for one in five deaths in men and one in 20 deaths in women.
In 2010, smoking will cause 930,000 adult deaths in India.
Moreover, "tobacco use and alcohol are strongly correlated, so residual confounding by the use of alcohol could explain some of the excess mortality among smokers."
And smokers tend to live with other smokers, which could "have inflated the rates of smoking among control subjects."
The authors acknowledged that "the tubercle bacillus is obviously a cause of all deaths from tuberculosis." But they said that smoking could contribute to tuberculosis deaths because subclinical infection is
widespread and "smoking could facilitate the progression to clinical disease."
The study was funded by grants from the John E. Fogarty Center of the National Institutes of Health, the Canadian
International Development Research Center, the Canadian Institute of Health Research, the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, the Keenan Research Center, Cancer Research U.K., and the United Kingdom Medical Research Council. Dr. Jha reported no potential conflict of interest.
Indian health authorities want tobacco companies to print grisly images of
tobacco-related diseases on packets of cigarettes and beedis, but face
opposition from politicians keen to protect the jobs of tobacco workers.
Tobacco contains 4000 chemicals
Tobacco contains 4000 chemicals of which 250 are known to be harmful and
50 known to cause cancer . Of all those who consume tobacco, hardly 37% know about the harmful effects. People are barely aware that tobacco
increases risk of coronary heart disease and stroke. Those who are
aware want to quit. But its only when it’s too late that people actually
give it up. Second-hand smoking or passive smoking as it is commonly
called is when one inhales smoke from cigarettes, etc. from those actively smoking around them, as is common in public places like
restaurants, theatres, bus stops, stations, even at home. This passive
smoking causes sudden death in infants and low birth weight
babies in pregnant women. It causes heart attacks, stroke, respiratory
disorders, and lung cancer to name a few.
History of World No Tobacco Day
WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco came into action in February
2005 and has the following objectives:
1 To raise taxes
2 To enforce bans on tobacco and products
3 To warn about its dangers
4 To offer help to quit tobacco consumption
5 To protect people from future tobacco use
6 To monitor tobacco use and prevention policies |
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In July 1998, WHO came up with the Tobacco Free Initiative (TFI) to
strengthen its fight against tobacco. It launched the MPOWER campaign to monitor tobacco use and implementation of policies against tobacco to
make the TFI a reality. Efforts of WHO have received immense support and implementation from UN and all its member nations but yet the earning
from tobacco and its products is 173 times more than the expenditure on its curtailment and awareness.
Quit smoking
Smoking is the leading cause of preventable illness. Quitting smoking is
the single best thing you can do for your health. Most smokers know that
tobacco is bad for their health and they want to quit.More than three-fourths of the current smokers have tried to quit at
least once. Quitting smoking is tough. It takes time, planning, patience, effort and energy and a strong motivation.
There are very many ways and options to quit — counselling, smoking
cessation programmes, nicotine replacement therapy and prescription medications. If one has a markedly strong will, quitting cold turkey
without the help of other modes is possible. A well planned, ideal and
customized combination of options greatly reduces the pain and discomfort of quitting that may prove intense during the initial few
days or weeks.
Avoid smoking in your home. Throw away your ash trays. Save yourself and your family from the toxic
effects of second-hand smoke. Your family and friends can play a valuable role in your new life as a non-smoker.
Encouragement from loved ones is extremely helpful. They form your biggest cheerleaders.
Be serious and firm in your resolve. Stay motivated and focus all your attention on quitting, giving it the highest priority. Be
busy both physically and mentally all the time. |
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