Smoking: Difference between revisions

'Smoking' is totally banned in sikhi as it contains Tobacco.

Let us have a quick look how it kills, the world is realising this now, but for the great Sikh Gurus warned much earlier.

With about 700 million kilograms of tobacco produced annually in India, its exports earn over Rs 1250 crore in foreign exchange. Domestic sale of tobacco products contribute a whopping Rs 8400 crore annually by means of excise duty. Nonetheless, the total annual loss from healthcare costs including lost productivity is about Rs. 27,000 crore. Surely this outweighs revenue from tobacco-products' sales!

When compared to 1,790 cigarettes smoked in China and 2,193 in the US, our per capita smoking at 119 cigarettes may perhaps be the lowest. With 25 per cent of the overall population using tobacco in some form (an estimated 65 per cent of men and about one third of women) the alarm bells are surely ringing.

The latest World Health Organisation report “Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2008”, points out that tobacco, the leading preventable cause of death, responsible for over five million deaths a year globally will take the lives of another 1 billion people in the 21st century. Rather, they will die prematurely. Another WHO study on “Global Tobacco Use & Control Efforts” found that tobacco use among women which has risen rapidly in India with 9.7 per cent girls (13 to 15 years) using some form of tobacco compared to 3.1 per cent adult women. Are our young girls encouraged by female celebrities like Drew Barrymore, Julia Roberts and so on to accept smoking at ease?

Does seeing depictions of smoking in movies influence kids to smoke? Contrary to arguments, research seems to suggest that smoking on the big screen is an important factor for nonsmoking individuals, especially teenagers, to light up. Those who never smoked but who had higher exposure to smoking in movies developed more positive attitudes toward smoking.

Others who identified with stars who smoked also took up smoking. Notably, parenting style has its effects on adolescent smoking. While kids of neglectful parents smoke at the highest rates, kids of authoritative parents also smoke, but at the lowest rates. Notably A study on the ‘portrayal of tobacco in Indian cinema’ in 2003 had revealed that cigarettes accounted for 72 per cent of all smoking incidents. Many respondents admitted they copied smoking styles of different characters and actors in the movies. An important finding that mainstream films highly influenced youth behaviour prompted the government to ban depiction of smoking scenes in films and television.

Union health minister of INDIA urged in 2007 to Bollywood actors Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan not to smoke in movies, quoting statistics that 52 per cent children had their first puff after watching screen idols. Accepting the appeal to quit smoking in real life, Shah Rukh was quick to point out that since cinema was all about make believe, actors ought not be asked to curb “creative liberties”.

Smoking could also ruin sex life as it can increase the risk of erectile dysfunction among men and compromise well-being and quality of life. Counselling and medical help can help overcome the nicotine withdrawal syndrome like irritability, frustration, anxiety, difficulty in concentrating, increased appetite, weight gain etc. It needs to be appreciated that every cigarette shortens the lifespan by six minutes and each puff is a guaranteed step to premature self destruction. It’s now or never!

Smoking facts:

Tobacco, is the second major cause of death in the world and kills than five million people prematurely every year. One in every five deaths in the US is smoking related. While in the company of a smoker, a non-smoker inhales about 15 per cent of the same tobacco as the former. For every 10 cigarettes smoked by a smoker, the non-smoker inhales the equivalent of 1-1/2 cigarettes. Chronic bronchitis, pneumonia, and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases (COPD) are other ways that smoking kills both the smoker and the non-smoker alike.

Children of parents who smoke have an increased incidence of cough, bronchitis, ear infection and pneumonia. Women who consume 3 cigarettes per day double their risk, not only of heart attacks but also of death from other causes.

2010: A Study Predicts Smoking to kill One Million

Courtesy : Hindustan Times 01 March (News Item)

Smoking will kill 1 million adults between 30 and 69 years in India each year in the 2010s, the country’s first nationally representative study on smoking deaths has revealed.

Cigarettes (bidis a non filtered extra jolt of nicotine (lit. Lightning bolt) would cause one in five of all male deaths and one in 20 of all female deaths.

The research, done by a team from India, Canada and the UK and supported by the World Health Organisation and the health ministry, was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. “Based on smoking prevalence of 35 per cent adult men and 5 per cent adult women, smoking is projected to cause about one million deaths each year, which is far more than previously believed, ”said the report’s lead author, professor Prabhat Jha from the Centre for Global Health Research, St. Michael's Hospital, University of Toronto.

While the study found no safe levels of smoking, cigarettes were found to be more dangerous than bidis. “On an average, male bidi smokers lose about six years of life, female bidi smokers lose about eight years and male cigarette smokers lose about 10 years. There were not enough women cigarette smokers in the study to draw a clear conclusion,” Jha said. The leading cause of death in urban smokers was heart attacks, while it was tuberculosis in rural areas.

There are 120 million smokers in India, with a third of the men and about five per cent of women, between 30 and 69 years, smoking either cigarettes or bidis.

About 900 field workers surveyed all adult deaths from 2001-2003 in a nationally representative sample of 1.1 million homes across the country. What also surprised researchers were the extreme risks from smoking among Indians. “Smokers in India start at a later age than those in Europe or America and smoke less, but in India smoking kills not only from diseases like cancer and lung diseases but also from tuberculosis and heart attacks,” said Jha.