Bad news for smokers! A puff of cigarette in Jammu City can cost you Rs 200/-

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Beware: Tobacco is the biggest enemy

• Smoking may soon account for 20 percent of all male deaths and 5 percent of all female deaths among Indians between the ages of 30 and 69.
• About 61 percent of men who smoke can expect to die between the ages of 30 and 69, compared with only 41 percent of non-smoking men who are similar in other ways.
• About 62 percent of women who smoke can expect to die between the ages of 30 and 69, compared to only 38 percent of non-smoking women.
• On average, men who smoke bidi—the popular hand-rolled cigarettes that contain about one-quarter as much tobacco as a full-sized cigarette—shorten their lives by about six years. Men who smoke full-sized cigarettes lose about 10 years of life.
• Bidi-smoking women shorten their lives by about eight years on average.
• Smoking 1-7 bidis a day, for example, raised mortality risks by 25 percent while smoking an equal number of cigarettes daily doubled the risk of death to 50 percent.

By Ajmer Alam Wani

JAMMU: The studies conducted by the scientists from India, Canada and UK, it has been established that smoking kills 900,000 people every year in India, and unless corrective action is taken soon that number will increase to 1 million smoking-related deaths annually by 2010 and beyond.

The study in which 900 field workers gathered information from a sample of 1.1 million homes in all parts of India was published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Keeping in vie the risk of smoking Government of India had passed a law in 2008 banning smoking at all the public places. With the passing of law it was expected that smoking will be banned at all public places hotels, restaurants, schools, pubs or discotheques, hospitals, airports and bus stops but the practice continued despites having a law to deal with it. Though it was decided by the Government that the implementation of ban was to be effective from Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary and was to cover even hookah bars and pubs as well as private offices and public places like bus stops across the country but results was not attained as expected.

Jammu city, which is also called the city of temples, is no exception to the smoking and use of tobacco items. In the city, youth and old could be seen enjoying smoking at public places while majority of youth could be seen chewing tobacco items.

But now smokers beware! Hotels, restaurants, Dhabas, offices and other public places with in the jurisdiction of Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) would be now out of bounds to light up the rolled tobacco as JMC has launched its drive against the smokers and the officers have pledged to impose the ban strictly on smoking in public places.

The anti smoking drive was enforced by the JMC today under the supervision of Medical Officer, Dr. Anwar Choudhary at several public places of the winter capital of the state.

Today, 21 challans were presented against the smokers while Rs 4500 were realized as fine from those who were found smoking at public places and those violating the law by allowing smoking around their outlets.

During today’s anti smoking drive of JMC, the areas covered included, Hari Market, Raghunath Bazaar, Residency Road, City Square Mall and several other public places in the area. When contacted Dr. Anwar Choudhary said, “While imposing fine we consider few things like the poverty and innocence but up to Rs 200 are imposed as fine against those who smoke at public places.

However, the study did not examine the mortality risks of secondhand smoke, which the US Surgeon General has declared a significant health hazard for non-smokers, especially children. According to Harvard University Professor Amartya Sen, it is truly remarkable that one single factor, namely smoking, which is entirely preventable, accounts for nearly one in 10 of all deaths in India. The study brings out forcefully the need for immediate public action in this much-neglected field. There are approximately 120 million smokers in India, about 37 percent of all men and 5 percent of all women between the ages of 30 and 69. The government is taking several steps to control tobacco use, including making special efforts to inform people who are poor or illiterate about the dangers of smoking. According to the study, more than 50 percent of the tobacco-related deaths in India occur among illiterate men or women, and 80 percent of those people reside in rural India. Indian health authorities have urged the government to do more, but some politicians oppose further action because they want to protect the jobs of tobacco workers. The projected increase in smoking-related deaths in India is part of a global trend, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which estimates that smoking-related deaths worldwide will surpass 9 million annually by 2020—with 7 million of those deaths occurring in developing nations. Twenty-five years ago, nearly 70 percent of the lung cancer deaths worldwide occurred in high-income nations. Today, 50 percent of lung cancer deaths occur in low-income nations, and by 2030 that number is expected to increase to 70 percent. One reason for the change is that consumer education, regulation and societal pressure have lowered smoking rates in many developed countries, which has also brought down the number of smoking-related deaths in those nations. Another reason for the shift is that tobacco companies have mounted aggressive marketing campaigns in developing countries, where there are few restrictions on how they sell or advertise their products, to help compensate for decreased smoking rates and lower profits in developed nations. Currently, 1.3 billion people worldwide smoke or use other tobacco products, and nearly 5 million die as a result. Eighty-four percent of the world’s tobacco users live in countries with developing or transitional economies. WHO has started a global effort to reduce cancer deaths worldwide—aiming to prevent 8 million cancer deaths by 2015—and a primary focus of that initiative is to lower tobacco use in developing countries. "Even if smoking rates stayed the same worldwide, we would see a huge increase in cancer incidence in the next decades just because of the growth and aging of the population," said Peter Boyle, Ph.D, director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, a WHO research organization. "Whereas there were 100 million deaths in the 20th century caused by tobacco, if current trends continue, there will be 1 billion in the 21st century. Tobacco is the biggest enemy we face.”