Mumbai: In a city where chewing tobacco and its products is rampant, the campaign to rid this life-threatening habit is gradually taking on.
To begin with, on the eve of World No Tobacco Day on May 31, the BEST (Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport) conductors and drivers took a pledge to quit tobacco in order to lead a healthy lifestyle. Rusan Healthcare, a pharmaceutical company, conducted a special camp for BEST staff to assess their level of tobacco addiction, educate them about health hazards of its consumption and the importance of leading a healthy life by giving up tobacco.
Dr Anilkumar Singal, Chief Medical Officer, BEST, Mumbai, said, “To provide uninterrupted power supply and effective transport service, the BEST has employed 45,000 people. BEST takes utmost care to maintain the health of its employees at an optimum level. For that, the Medical Department of BEST undertakes various health promotion activities like ‘Tobacco Free BES Campaign.’ Till date, around 500 BEST employees have given up their tobacco habit. Today, I am delighted by the efforts taken by Rusan Healthcare for providing treatment to 100 BEST employees that will help them quit tobacco.”
Initiatives and events, such as this on World No Tobacco Day, highlights the terrible effects of tobacco consumption in the country where millions of Indians are addicted to this habit. According to Cancer Patients Aid Association, only 20 per cent of the total tobacco consumed in India is in the form of cigarettes, about 40 per cent is in the form of bidis and the remaining 40 per cent is consumed as chewing tobacco, pan masala, snuff, gutkha, masher and tobacco toothpaste. These products contain putrefied tobacco paraffin, areca nut, lime, catechu and 230 permitted additives and flavours including known carcinogens.
According to the World Health Organisation country profiles, India has one of the highest rates of oral cancer in the world and the numbers are increasing annually. This disproportionate incidence of oral cancer has been related to the high proportion of tobacco chewers, a habit unique to Indians. The addiction has spread even among the young, including schoolchildren.
This year, the WHO and the Secretariat of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control are calling countries to get ready for plain (standarised) packaging of tobacco products. Plain packaging is an important demand reduction measure that reduces the attractiveness of tobacco products, restricts use of tobacco packaging as a form of tobacco advertising and promotion, limits misleading packaging and labelling and increases the effectiveness of health warnings.
Hopefully, governments around the globe implement these measures as tobacco companies have fought plain packaging with a massive misinformation campaign for decades, says WHO.
