By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter
Srinagar: The monthly expenditure on smoking tobacco Jammu and Kashmir is substantially higher than the national monthly expenditure, as revealed by a survey conducted by Government of India.
Nearly 70% of adults are exposed to tobacco smoke in Jammu and Kashmir and the state is now emerging as the highest spending state on tobacco products.
“The state’s monthly spending on smoking tobacco as far outstrips the national monthly expenditure averages. While nationally, smokers aged 15 and above spend Rs 399.20 a month on cigarettes and Rs 93.40 on bidis, those in J&K spend Rs 513.60 and Rs 134.20, respectively on these tobacco forms,” revealed Global Adult Tobacco Survey, (GATS).
Consequently, health hazards due to passive smoking are also more in J&K than elsewhere in the North.
Interestingly, the survey reveals that 26.6% population of in Jammu & Kashmir is using tobacco product in one or the other of its form. Out of these users, 41.6% are males and 10.3% females. The average age at daily initiation of tobacco use is 17.3 years in adults, 17.5 years in males and 14.9 years in females.
“It has come to light that the highest proportion of adults in J&K (69.7%) is exposed to tobacco smoke at home, out of which 72.1% are men and 66.9% are women. About 67.9% of adults are exposed to tobacco smoke at workplaces, out of which 70.6% are men, 61.4% are women and 35.2% of adults are exposed to tobacco smoke in public places, out of which 46.1% are men, 23% are women,” the survey reveals.
According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare data, nearly 37% children in India initiate smoking before the age of 10 and each day, 5,500 children begin the use of tobacco.
While sharing apprehensions over the finding’s and need for interventions, Seema Gupta, Director Programmes at the Voluntary Health Association of India, (VHAI), said, “The findings of these studies highlight the need for targeted interventions among youth in general and students in particular, especially given the marketing overdrive of the tobacco industry to promote the use of tobacco among youth.”
Importantly, the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA), Tobacco Control Act enacted in 2003 applicable to the entire country was mainly to discourage the consumption of tobacco products through progressive restrictions and to protect non-smokers from passive smoking, but thirteen years after its start, little has been achieved to curb smoking.