Wednesday 31 May 2023

We need food, not tobacco - World No -tobacco Day,2023

 

He is not getting a sufficient meal a day. He could not look into the helpless eyes of his mother. So he went outside to spend some time with his friends. They couldn't supply him with food, but tobacco, the cheapest. At a very young age, he suffered from oral cancer. He sold his properties for treatment and got cured. Now he has a family with a wife and two children. He is a trolley puller. Now they strive for food, not tobacco.

India bears three-fourths of the burden of the world's tobacco. 267 million users are in India. 21.4% use smokeless tobacco, out of which 29.6% are men and 12.8% are women. 7.7%use bidis. 30.2% of adults are second hand smokers. Smoking causes cancer of all sorts, especially oral cancer and lung cancer. 1.2 million people die every year in India due to tobacco and its effects. 90% of oral cancers are due to smoking.

The hunger situation in India is very precarious. In 2021, the position of India was 101 out of 121 countries, and the position of malnutrition was 107 out of 121 countries. 224.3 million people are undernourished. Child wasting is 19.3%, which is worse than 2014 (15.1%).

Smoking not only causes cancer and TB, it is also associated with CV, type 2 diabetes, and the metabolic syndrome. Lack of food may aggravate the situation earlier, causing a loss of income due to the loss of human capital of the smoker and the family members as caretakers. Women are thrown out of the family. So tobacco can never be a substitute for food. 13.3% of people smoke in public places. Let us take a vow to totally eradicate it by making some amendments to the law and enforcing them with all honesty.

Tobacco is less precious than life.

 

Dr. Minakshi Panda, PhD

Retd. Prof. of Political Science

Chairman, PECUC


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