Detrimental Tobacco

Let me start by saying that I don't want to sound like a fanatic, for I don't suggest anything that I can't do myself. I quit smoking recently. And that's no small feat. Tobacco is the most common form of addiction and one of the most harmful as well, much more than the dreaded cannabis or for that matter Ecstasy, let alone alcohol.

If, and I know it's a big if, alcohol is consumed in moderation at a decent pace, half an hour for a peg, it's actually medicinal. But there's no safe amount of consumption of tobacco products. And for a young country like India, where half of the population is below 25 years of age, tobacco is doom. The greatest challenge before India, as a nation, is to exploit the incredible demographic potential—and inculcating a sports culture is the most effective way of doing it. Tobacco is the surest and easiest way of squandering it.

Simply put, tobacco is a significant public health hazard, and something urgently needs to be done to discourage people from tobacco consumption. Just to give an idea of the enormity of the problem, globally, tobacco kills more people than tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and malaria combined. Remember, smoking a cigarette is just one of many ways of consuming tobacco. The consumption of smokeless tobacco in the form of snuff, chewing tobacco, tobacco leaf and gutkha is widespread amongst all age groups in India. There's no escape, every second Indian is hooked on to one or the other form of tobacco consumption, and more often than not, it contributes to oral submucosal fibrosis or OSF.

More Indians chew tobacco than they smoke cigarettes or beedis, the figures are 26 per cent and 14 per cent, respectively, according to the Indian government and the World Health Organisation's Global Adult Tobacco Survey of 2009-2010. Not surprisingly, nearly 80 per cent of oral cancer patients are tobacco users.

Recently, the Indian Journal of Medical of Pediatrics published a study by Gauravi Mishra, Sharmila A Pimple and Surendra S Shastri that pointed to the fact that India is the second-largest consumer of tobacco globally, and accounts for approximately one-sixth of the world's tobacco-related deaths. The Global Youth Tobacco Survey paints a grim picture of India. It was carried out amongst students of classes VIII, IX and X, or roughly of the 13-16 age group. It was found that 15 per cent of students used tobacco products, mostly chewing tobacco (nearly 80 per cent).

Despite this, not much has been done to curtail tobacco consumption. One of the main reasons is that the tobacco industry is fairly influential. It has been boasting about its contribution to the Indian economy at large by generating employment in the agriculture and manufacturing sectors along with revenues in the form of exports and taxes, as a justification to be allowed to play with the health of our country's people. But one doesn't need rocket science to understand that the public health hazard caused by tobacco outweighs all economic benefits many times over.

In the past, many states have tried to ban chewing tobacco but with little success. Take the case of gutka, a concoction of raw betel nut mixed with tobacco, which has been banned for some years now. To circumvent this, many tobacco companies started selling gutka discreetly, by selling pan masala paired with a separate sachet of tobacco. Though this may seem harmless, tobacco sold in small portions in a sachet actually facilitates its use primarily amongst teenagers. Many celebrities, from the film industry to sports, campaign for tobacco products, in spite of the repeated persuasion against doing so. Tobacco, sadly, has become an integral part of life in cities and villages.

I specialise in youth outreach programmes by the way of sports. And tobacco consumption is a great impediment to the objective of creating a healthy society that is committed to playing sports. Children and the unemployed youth are hard-pressed for money, and their consumption of tobacco products is highly susceptible to strong fiscal measures.The availability of tobacco products in smaller quantities, in sachets and cigarettes sold by individual sticks, make it accessible to all, even children. Ideally, the government should ban the consumption of tobacco. But, till the time it's done, at least the government should ensure two things. One, those that are 18 years and below are not to be sold any tobacco product. And two, the sale of tobacco products in small quantities, especially sachets which cost merely Rs 5 to 10, should be banned at the earliest. This will effectively curtail the access of tobacco products to sub-adults. No half measures will suffice in the fight against tobacco. Ban tobacco. 

Courtesy: Millennium Post

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9.9% school kids suffer from bronchial asthma

The students residing in rural area who are exposed to smoke along with a family history of bronchial asthma are at greater risk of getting the chronic inflammatory disease compared with those staying in urban area, shows a study conducted by Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences among the higher secondary school students in Ernakulam district.

A total of 629 students participated in this study and the prevalence of bronchial asthma was estimated to be 9.9%. Besides family history, one of the main causes for asthma as per the study is active and passive smoking. Almost 15.3 % of those who had asthma reported that their friends used to smoke in their presence, when compared to 8.6% of those who reported not being exposed to friend's smoke. In the study, 18.6% who had asthma reported a family history of asthma, as per the study published in the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care.

"One of the main cause of chronic respiratory disease is active and passive smoking, besides family history. This shows that despite the tobacco control programs in place, school students in Ernakulam reportedly smoke," one of the author of the study PS Rakesh, department of community medicine, AIMS.

The study shows that while 5.4% of those having bronchial asthma were told by a doctor that they had asthma, 4.1% were currently receiving treatment for asthma. Majority of those studied (56.1%) were males, with 54.8% residing at a rural location and 93.9% living in pucca houses. Incidentally, of those residing in rural area (12.2%) had asthma while it was 7.1% for those belonging to urban areas.

In India, there are currently more than 15 million people living with asthma. Kerala government that has implemented a pilot project of the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended practical approach to lung health strategy, with an intention to further strengthen the health system and to improve the quality of diagnosis, treatment and management of common chronic respiratory illnesses in primary healthcare settings.

The state government has a plan to scale up public health programmes for chronic respiratory disease management. As per the plan, they have started a programme to address the problem of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a major cause of morbidity and mortality in India, affecting nearly 9% of the population above 35 years.

Courtesy:Times of India

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Holy smoke! Sale of tobacco products to kids continue unchecked

  

The sale of tobacco products to those under the age of 18 continues to burgeon in blatant disregard of the law making this illegal. Every vendor has the board put up claiming that sale to underage children is prohibited. However, the biggest customers for tobacco products remains school and college students!

The once in a blue moon raids carried out by excise sleuths or police results in big loads of pan and other products being confiscated. However, there is seldom any action other than detaining the peddlers and slapping them with a fine. Often there aren't any probe into the source and the channels of smuggling these products.

The punishment for transporting or selling tobacco products is only a fine, a mere slap on the wrist which enables those caught to continue doing the same things. Most of the people caught in such instances under police record are repeat offenders. These days, on top of tobacco products, even intoxicating sweets are being sold in shops near schools.

Earlier, routine health department checks used to take place under schemes like Healthy Kerala. This kept a check on the sale of such products. However, new steps taken by the health department, decreasing the regularity of checks has contributed to the upsurge in sales of these products.

In spite of the fact that parent bodies, teachers associations and school managements are all increasing their roles, in many cases, nobody comes forward to give an official complaint. The need of the hour is to stop letting off those involved with mere fines and instead trace out the source of the problem and bring them to public light.

Courtesy: Manoramaonline

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Tobacco use drives students to poor academic performance, leads them to other drugs: Study

A study that surveyed more than 7,500 high school and higher secondary school students in Ernakulam district has found that tobacco users are prone to poorer academic performance. It also proves that tobacco is a gateway drug, one that leads users to other potent drugs.

A high 76.3 per cent of lifelong tobacco users – those who had smoked or used smokeless tobacco throughout their life – had failed in a subject compared to 57 per cent of non-users. Further, 24.7 per cent of such users had failed a year of studies as against 9.1 per cent non-users.

The study also found that tobacco users had significantly higher usage rates of alcohol and illicit drugs. Alcohol use among lifelong tobacco users was found to be 67.8 per cent as compared to 11 per cent in non-users. In the case of illicit drugs, the rates of use were 33 per cent versus 6.1 per cent in tobacco users and non-users respectively.

These findings recently published in the prestigious Indian Journal of Medical Research are part findings of the larger study looking at psychological issues among adolescent school students, done by the Bengaluru-based National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS). The National Health Mission (Kerala) and the Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Kerala also associated with the study.

In what could be good news to enforcement officials, the study reports decreasing trend of tobacco use among adolescent high school students compared to previous studies done among students in South India, and in Kannur district. In the survey, 6.9 per cent students reported having used tobacco in any form, with the proportion of males using tobacco being 12.5 per cent and females 1.2 per cent.

Most users still initiated early with the mean age of initiation among users being 14 years. Further, a majority of users (67 per cent) were using it hazardously in their school years signifying that they had a very high risk of progression to addiction.

Lead author Dr T.S. Jaisoorya said, “We took up the study to evaluate psychological issues among school going adolescents who often have multiple vulnerabilities. The prevalence of tobacco use and its negative outcomes among adolescents suggests that proactive intervention from teachers and parents is needed to check tobacco use among students. Measures need to be strengthened and continued to improve awareness of the wide variety of tobacco related harm and also ensure that ban of tobacco supply is strictly enforced near our educational institutions.”

“Policymakers can longer afford to see tobacco use as a problem of the past. It is as much a public health menace as alcohol and dangerous drug abuse. Any further delay in addressing the tobacco problem among the youth is opening up Kerala to a painful burden of a lifetime of lifestyle diseases,” commented Dr K.R. Thankappan, Emeritus Professor, Achutha Menon Centre for Health Science Studies of the Sree Chitra Institute of Medical Sciences and Technology, Trivandrum.

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