By IANS
New Delhi : When it comes to making smokers kick the habit, India has a lot to learn from countries like Canada, New Zealand and even neighbouring China.
These countries are shining examples of how the government and civil society can make individuals quit smoking – a sure way of reducing the risk of tuberculosis, cancer and respiratory and heart diseases.
In India, very few people have been able to give up the addiction. For instance, in 2004, only two percent of adults stopped smoking and that too when they fell seriously ill, says a new WHO supported study published online in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Prabhat Jha, the lead author of the study, “A nationally representative case -control study of smoking and death in India”, said China and Thailand had the same percentage of people quitting smoking 10 years ago.
“Now in China, nine percent of people have been able to quit smoking, while it is 15 percent in Thailand,” Jha told IANS. He said word got out that people were dying of smoking in China and which made civil society take up the issue.
“The public recognised the threat to their health from smoking. There, civil society was responsible in changing the mindset of people. Emphasis was given on educating and creating awareness among smokers,” said Jha.
To prevent tobacco use, Canada and New Zealand restricted surrogate advertising of cigarettes, he said.
“The governments of these countries don’t allow the use of trademarks and logos of companies that manufacture cigarettes,” Jha said, citing the example of cigarette companies in India holding events like bravery awards.
He said even the European Union took up the matter seriously only in the 1990s after statistics showed a high number of people dying of smoking.
Jha is director of Canada’s Centre for Global Health Research (CGHR), a research institute that is co-sponsored by St. Michael’s Hospital (Toronto) and University of Toronto.
Sir Richard Peto of Oxford University, who is co-author of the study, said, “Smoking kills. About a quarter of all smokers will be killed by tobacco by their middle age in India unless they are stopped.”
British studies show that stopping smoking is remarkably effective, he added.
Jean King, the director of tobacco control in Britain, said, “It is clear that the best way for smokers to reduce their risk of cancer and many other life-threatening diseases is to stop smoking entirely.”
“In Britain, we have seen a decrease in lung cancer rates over the past 30 years as smoking rates decline, particularly among men,” he said.
Jha said the government and individuals have to take the risks of smoking “very seriously”.
“We have found evidence that there is a direct link between tuberculosis and smoking. Smoking helps in spreading the disease through coughing,” Jha said, adding that the study also showed that people in the rural area mostly die of tuberculosis.
“Smoking is more common among illiterate men than those who have at least completed their primary education,” he added.
The study showed that those smokers who live in rural areas in India die of tuberculosis, while those residing in urban pockets die of heart attacks.
In Britain and China, smokers mostly die of cancer and respiratory diseases.
Appreciating the Indian government’s initiative of having pictorial warnings on tobacco products, Jha said it would serve the purpose as half the deaths due to smoking in the country are among illiterate adults.
The study has said one in five of all male deaths and one in 20 of all female deaths in India in the 30-69 age group will be caused by smoking in the 2010s and underlines that the country is in the midst of a “catastrophic epidemic”.
There are an estimated 120 million smokers and more than one-third of men and five percent of women aged 30-69 smoke beedis (leaf-rolled cigarettes).