World No-Tobacco Day: Kick the butt or pay the price

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WHO says smoking is down in India, but tobacco use is still a major cause of concern

Every year tobacco kills almost 7 million people across the world. According to WHO, countries across the world pay up about $1.4 trillion annually in healthcare costs related to tobacco-attributable diseases.
In India, more than 9,32,600 adults are killed by tobacco-caused diseases annually. Besides, more than 6,25,000 children (10-14 years old) continue to use tobacco each day.

In India, every sixth second a person loses his life battling diseases due to the consumption of tobacco. According to Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS), India has an alarmingly high rate of tobacco consumption. Almost 275 million adults consume some form of tobacco.

Overall, the percentage of tobacco users has gone down in India by six percentage points during the six years, from 34.6% to 28.6%. A few problems are:

68% of smokers, 17% of bidi smokers, and 50% of smokeless tobacco users purchase loose tobacco.
30% of those who work indoors are exposed to passive smoking
23% adults are still exposed to smoke at public places.
Despite the gutka ban, 51 million people were still able to buy gutka

According to the second Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS-2) report, 'Khaini' and bidi emerged as the most commonly used tobacco products with 11 per cent of the adult population consuming 'khaini' and 8 per cent smoking bidis.

The prevalence of tobacco use was the highest in northeastern states. Tripura also has the highest prevalence of smokeless tobacco users, with 48.5% of people using it. With 34.4%, Mizoram had the highest number of bidi smokers.

High taxes on legal cigarettes, especially on the foreign brands, in the country over the years have led to a significant shift in tobacco consumption to lightly taxed or tax-evaded tobacco products.

According to WHO, cigarette taxes in India (as a percentage of per capita GDP) are almost 12 times higher than in the USA, 9 times higher than Japan; almost 6 times more than China, 5 times higher than Germany; 3 times more than in Australia, UK & Malaysia and 2 times higher than Pakistan and Thailand. Consequently, cigarette prices in India, relative to per capita GDP, are also amongst the highest in the world.
The average expenditure incurred on purchase of cigarette, bidi and smokeless tobacco is Rs 30, Rs 12.5 and Rs 12.8 respectively

The World Health Organisation recommends 70% excise tax on the retail price of cigarettes, it remains at just over 26% in India.

A smoker not only loses his healthy lungs, smoking also burns a big hole in his pockets. A heavy smoker loses more than a crore, if he smokes for 30 years.