Ban on tobacco advertising not enough

Deccan Herald

Ban on tobacco advertising not enough

The best policy for the government is to sufficiently alarm people, to launch massive awareness campaigns, and to put a disincentive to the tobacco industry.


One cannot help finding an ironical twist to the ritual fulminations against smoking every year on the World No Tobacco Day because the government in India can neither ban smoking nor promote it. Since Portuguese merchants first brought tobacco to India 400 years ago, the trade boomed and tobacco quickly established itself as the most important commodity passing through Goa in the 17th century, perfected after the British introduced modern commercially-produced cigarettes.

But smoking is essentially a lifestyle problem. While tobacco companies are the usual bete noire, credited with causing cancer, a deeper cause for many other diseases of industrial civilisation like lung cancer may lie in modern commercial processing and refining of foods. Three kinds of food processing that are said to adulterate our foods — refining, deep frying, and hydrogenation — are perhaps no less harmful than tobacco. Many are beginning to suggest that we should go after the food processing industries for selling us products that kill us from heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, and a host of other ailments that are unknown outside of modern industrial societies.

Can the government spare a thought on our lifestyles?

That’s why ban on tobacco advertising is simply not enough. Cigarettes still have a strong general appeal as a product, especially to young people, thanks to skillful marketing. The tobacco industry, for instance, had lobbied at the highest political level in Europe to try to prevent the EC passing a directive to ban tobacco advertising and sponsorship.

Tobacco kills — we all know that — but for the government tobacco is an extremely profitable means to kill. India produces about 0.64 million tonnes of tobacco per annum and is the second largest harvester of tobacco in the world after China. About 0.1013 million tonnes of tobacco are exported and the rest consumed within the country. India is the third largest consumer of tobacco in the world after China and the USA. Tobacco and tobacco products contribute over Rs 6,500 million in export earnings and over Rs 30,000 million to the excise of the country. But how to strike a balance between public welfare and revenue earning? According to an estimate, tobacco usage in India claims more than 8,00,000 lives annually.

Scholars on the subject argue that India is at the intersection of local and global forces fuelling a worldwide epidemic of smoking deaths.

Globally the number of smokers is expected to rise to 1.7 billion by 2020. The smoking epidemic that currently results in an estimated four million deaths annually is projected to rise to 10 million by 2030, 70 per cent of which will occur in developing countries. From the initial focus of men in high-income countries, the tobacco majors have turned to tap women both in developing and high-income countries, and more recently to men in low-income countries.

Ninety per cent of the smokers in the country start smoking before they are 24 years old, most of them experiencing their first puff before attaining the age of 18. Out of 1,000 teenagers who smoke, at least 500 have been found to die of tobacco-related diseases.

To go by a study of the Epidemiological Research Centre in Chennai, half the male tuberculosis deaths in India are caused by smoking. According to the World Health Organisation, if smoking is unchecked, by 2020, 1.5 million people in India will become regular smokers.

The rub is the volume of people making a living out the tobacco-related industries, which somehow feeds off the government policies and plays an important role in the Indian economy. The tobacco industry generates nearly five per cent of the budget revenue which is fairly substantial. About six million Indian farmers are engaged in growing tobacco. Another 20 million people work on tobacco farms, and a large percentage of the population is employed in the retail trade. Taking the employees’ families into account, the tobacco industry in India probably supports 100 million people.

Mind you, the worldwide trend is a downscale of smoking — even in high-smoking countries such as France, China and Japan. The 61st survey on household consumer expenditure by the National Sample Survey Organisation finds that smoking habit among Indians is on the decline as the percentage of rural and urban households having smokers has dropped sharply during the past 11 years.

But the freedom to slow-poison oneself without endangering others is also deemed a right in a fiercely independent country. So the best policy for the government is to sufficiently alarm people, to launch massive awareness campaigns, and to put a disincentive to the tobacco industry. In the USA, the drop in smoking has been attributed to a number of reasons — a growing awareness about the health-damaging effects of smoking, rising cigarette prices, rising cigarette taxes, aggressive anti-smoking campaigns and a decline in the social acceptability of smoking. India can take the cue.

Life after Quitting
* After two Weeks: Blood flow improves; nicotine has passed from the body
* Two weeks to three months: Circulation will improve, making walking and running easier; lung functioning increases up to 30 per cent
* After five Years : Risk of stroke will be substantially reduced; within five to 15 years after quitting, it becomes about the same as non-smokers
* After 10 years: Risk of dying from lung cancer will be about half of what it would have been if smoking is continued. Risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, Esophagus, bladder, kidney, and pancreas will also decrease
* After 15 years: Risk of dying from a heart attack is equal to a person who never smoked

Now A VACCINE
NicVAX is a vaccine against smoking which is presently under development. It produces antibodies against nicotine, the addictive substance in tobacco. If a vaccinated person smokes, the antibodies attach themselves to nicotine. The resultant nicotine-antibody complex is too large to cross the blood-brain barrier.

Consequently, the smoker does not experience the expected effect of smoking in his brain. Clinical trials on NicVAX have begun; the Food and Drug Administration in the USA has put this research on the fast track.

NicVAX could be useful for smokers who are trying to quit, and for abstinent smokers who wish to remain abstinent. NicVAX may also prevent smoking; for example, parents may vaccinate their children against the development of addiction. This then might be the first vaccine to prevent a behaviour rather than a disease!

Instead of smoking...
* Chew sugarless gum, cardamom, a toffee, etc
* Call a friend
* Go to a place where you can’t smoke
* Take a walk or work out
* Remind yourself why you want to quit
* Develop a healthy lifestyle

STEPS TO FOLLOW
* Stop on the stipulated date and time. lan little rewards for yourself for each tobacco-free day, week or month. Buy yourself a new shirt or ask a friend to see a movie with you.
* It is quite understandable if the person is not able to quit by himself, considering the addictive nature of tobacco. Help is available in the form of counselling and medication
* The Tobacco Cessation Clinic (TCC) a WHO and Ministry of Health, Government of India initiative, functions at the De-addiction Out Patient Department (OPD) of NIMHANS, Bangalore every Monday and Saturday from 9 am to 2 pm.
* You can call Sudha/Jerome at 080-26995311 (Tuesday-Friday, 9:30-4:40) or send a mail to tccbangalore@ gmail.com for further information.

By Prasenjit Chowdhury

Online at: http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/May312007/panorama200705304740.asp
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