Huge tobacco use in India seen killing 1.5 million a year
September 13, 2013 - Tobacco inflicts huge damage on the health of India's people
and could be clocking up a death toll of 1.5 million a year by 2020 if more users
are not persuaded to kick the habit, an international report said on Thursday. Despite
having signed up to a global treaty on tobacco control and having numerous anti-tobacco
and smoke-free laws, India is failing to implement them effectively, leaving its
people vulnerable to addiction and ill health, according to the report by the International
Tobacco Control Project (ITCP). "Compared with many countries around the world, India
has been proactive in introducing tobacco control legislation since 2003," said Geoffrey
Fong, a professor of psychology at Canada's University of Waterloo and a co-author
of the report. "However ... the legislation currently in place is not delivering
the desired results - in terms of dissuading tobacco use and encouraging quitting."
As a result, India, with a population of 1.2 billion, currently has around 275 million
tobacco users, the report said. Harm from tobacco accounts for nearly half of all
cancers among males and a quarter of all cancers among females there, as well as being
a major cause of heart and lung diseases. The tobacco epidemic in India requires
urgent attention," the report said, adding that by 2020, tobacco consumption will
account for more than 1.5 million Indian deaths a year. Worldwide, the number of
deaths caused by tobacco is expected to rise from around 6 million a year now to more
than 8 million by 2030, according to the World Health Organisation, WHO. The ITCP
India Survey conducted face to face interviews with 8,000 tobacco users and 2,400
non-users across four Indian states - Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and West
Bengal. So-called smokeless tobacco - including chewing products such as gutkha, zarda,
paan masal and khaini - is the most common form of tobacco use in India, with many
poorer people and women preferring these over smoking cigarettes or bindis - small,
cheap, locally-made cigarettes.