Dail 1800 227787 to quit

A National Tobacco Cessation Quit Line - 1800 227787 - is available on all days from 9 am to 9 pm for all those seeking support to quit the butt.

The toll-free Quit Line, launched last World No Tobacco Day, will provide free support and guidance to tobacco users to overcome their addiction and increase their chances of quitting successfully. 

This Quit Line is designed to help tobacco users by answering their queries, formulating a personalised quit plan depending on their tobacco consumption pattern (cigarettes, beedis and other forms of chewing tobacco) and supporting them through the entire 12 week journey of quitting tobacco through a combination of phone calls, SMSs, emails and hand deliveries. 

Callers will receive tobacco cessation counselling in English, Hindi and other languages. 

This free of charge service can be used by all tobacco users, friends and families of tobacco users and even healthcare practitioners seeking to provide tobacco cessation therapy for their patients. 

To support the telephone counselling, callers wanting on-ground support will be referred to a local Tobacco Intervention Initiative (TII) centre of the Indian Dental Association (IDA). At each centre  dentists trained in tobacco cessation will help tobacco users give up their addiction and improve their health. There are 500 TII centres across India.

Source: NWN News

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Generic cigarette packs could cut smoking: New study

A new study suggests generic packaging could significantly decrease the number of adults who smoke and lead to a decrease in the number of children who try cigarettes.  

Generic packaging, which does not use brand imagery or promotional text, would reduce the number of adult smokers by 1 percent and the number of children who try smoking by 3 percent, researchers found after evaluating the professional opinions of 33 tobacco control experts.

In the United Kingdom, where approximately 10 million adults smoke, a 1 percent decrease in smokers means about 500,000 fewer people lighting up.

Plain packaging helps reduce smoking rates in young people because it makes cigarettes look less appealing, lessens brand identification , and creates a change in the social norms associated with smoking, the study found.

“Given that the majority of smokers first try smoking in adolescence, the impact on children is of particular importance,” said Rachel Pechey, first author of the study from the University of Cambridge’s Behavior and Health Research Unit.

The experts who participated in the study believe it takes about two years for decreases in smoking rates to start taking effect once a plain-packaging strategy is implemented in a particular country. But the impact of the strategy may well go beyond what tobacco control experts have predicted.

“Despite the consistency of experts’ predictions that plain packaging would reduce smoking rates, many participants felt that the two-year time frame we used was insufficient and did not allow for the full impact of the packaging. This suggests generic packaging could have a greater impact over a longer term period,” Pechey said.

In December 2012, Australia became the first country to implement plain packaging.

The research took the opinions of 14 experts from the UK, 12 from Australasia and 7 from North America on the impact plain packaging would have on smoking habits.

Source: Livescience

Image: Marketing Magazine

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Acid in gutkha spits corrodes the famous Howrah bridge

It was first reported in 2010 that the pillars of Kolkata's landmark Howrah bridge were being used as spittoons by pedestrians who chewed gutkha – a tobacco product popular with millions in India.

Engineers who surveyed the cantilever structure then reported that the struts supporting the girders of the bridge had already lost half of their metal casing: The corrosion was apparently caused by acids in the gutkha.

Gutkha is a commercially produced pre-packaged mixture of crushed betel nut, tobacco, lime, paraffin, and other "secret" ingredients, many of which are carcinogenic and addictive.

Some brands of gutkha also contain lead, arsenic, chromium, nickel, and cadmium, which are as bad as nicotine. To make its shelf life longer, magnesium carbonate – which is used in fire extinguishers and is a known carcinogen – is also added to gutkha.

If this is what acids in gutkha can do to a high-tensil steel bars of the bridge, little wonder on what it can do the human body.

Source: CNBC

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