Light my fire

Times of India

August 4, 2007

News- Light my fire

Smoke breaks are now seen as fun with the possibility of some flirting
THE government's plan to ban smoking in workplaces may have upset many smokers. But now they are looking at the brighter side - like the Irish, who first discovered the perks of going elsewhere to smoke when ciggy bans first came into effect in the country in 2004.

Smoke breaks are now seen as fun with the possibility of some flirting. They call it 'smirting.' According to wikipedia, smirting describes the social pastime of people flirting outside public places such as pubs, cafés and restaurants, where smoking is illegal. The term for the activity is a portmanteau of the words smoking and flirting. Make-up artist Ambika Pillai, who often travels abroad for ramp shows, says bonding over a smoke is similar to bonding over a drink at a pub.

"It happens when people are standing on a pavement asking for a light. Smokers get together at an airport or outside a club and conversations just start," she says. Model Bunty Grewal agrees that "smokers forced to puff in designated spaces find a bond." When smokers come together on a pavement, landing or smoking area, there are those five minutes of awkward silence to fill. Smirting is the answer to an exiled smoker's prayers, says ad man Rishi Singh.

"It happens a lot in corporate offices. In India, most women don't like men smoking, but I've made passes at many women smokers. We call it the 'smoke trick' . You ask a woman out for a smoke and share drags with them and then get talking," he confesses . "But it's important that you have lozenges handy and make sure you don't stink of tobacco," he says. Software engineer, Rachel D'souza says smokers have their own methods of selecting a partner.

"My boyfriend smokes and he says it's really cool to see a woman smoke. The good thing about being around smokers is that they judge you for who you are, while non-smokers disapprove ," she says. WHY THEY BOND Says psychologist Sujendra Prakash, "The reason smokers bond is, first, the guilt they carry that they are doing something different from others. And secondly, the social stigma attached to smokers. So they prefer being in each other's company. They build a group affinity because it gives them security, solidarity and a sense of belonging."

online available at - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/City_Supplements/Bangalore_Times/Light_my_fire_/articleshow/2253866.cms

Smoke it out

Times of India

August 3, 2007


News- Smoke it out

The Union government strictly controls the cultivation of poppy, limiting it to production required for pharmaceutical use such as morphine and codeine. This is because the recreational product from poppy, heroin, is habit-forming and can wreck the mental and physical health of the addict.

It is, therefore, surprising that tobacco, whose products are equally habit-forming and internationally condemned for causing cancer, is freely cultivated in India. Tobacco receives government support in the form of research inputs to enhance farm productivity and subsidies for export. Tobacco was introduced by the Portuguese to India some 400 years ago. Today, India is among the top three producers in the world of this killer weed, turning out around 700 million kg annually from 40 million hectares.

Tobacco causes over 20 categories of fatal and disabling diseases, especially cancer. Sixty-five per cent of all men and 33 per cent of all women in India use tobacco in some form. According to a report in the Indian Journal of Community Medicine, nearly half the cancer cases in India are tobacco-related. Oral cancer is a major public health problem in our country and has long been linked with the habit of chewing betel laced with tobacco.

As many as 8,00,000 Indians succumb every year to tobacco-related illnesses and most of them die before they have reached 40 years of age. WHO has projected that by 2020 tobacco will account for 13 per cent of all deaths in India.

The tax structure in India is skewed towards making tobacco products more affordable. Taxes levied on cigarettes are 30 times that imposed on bidis and chewing tobacco. Poorer people in India, particularly in rural areas, take to bidis and chewing tobacco. Bidi smokers have a 40 per cent higher risk of developing cancer than cigarette smokers. However, 38 per cent of tobacco in India is consumed as bidis, 48 per cent as chewing tobacco, and only 14 per cent as cigarettes. Considering the above, one would expect that the government would take steps to curb and eventually eliminate the cultivation of tobacco and production of tobacco products, instead of imposing cosmetic restrictions like banning the depiction of smoking in movies or depicting skull and crossbones on cigarette packs.

The government is not interested in striking at the roots of the tobacco menace because of vote-bank politics. The tobacco industry employs nearly 35 million people in the country including six million farmers, 20 million farm workers, 4.4 million bidi-making workers, 2.2 million tribals engaged in gathering tendu leaves (which go into bidi covers) and two million traders/retailers. The government can, perhaps, forgo the Rs 6,000 crore annual tax revenue from tobacco products but it would be hard put to withstand the wrath of the millions thrown out of work in case cultivation of tobacco is banned.

What about alternatives to tobacco for farmers? According to the findings of the Central Tobacco Research Institute, there are virtually no crops that match tobacco's levels of remuneration in relevant regions. In southern Andhra Pradesh, chillies come a poor second. In Karnataka, Gujarat, Bihar and West Bengal, cotton, pearl millet, maize and potato, respectively, are nowhere near tobacco in terms of earnings. Does this imply that we will have to live with the menace of tobacco and sacrifice a million or so lives a year so that 35 million can eke out a living? Not if tobacco farmers are made to take up alternative crops and the government makes up part of the difference in earnings through a subsidy.

As for bidi rollers, perhaps they can be trained to make other products from tendu leaves, such as plates and cups which can be environmentally superior alternatives to plastic products. Large consumers like the Railways, defence forces, marriage contractors can be induced to purchase these products in bulk from bidi-roller cooperatives. This will also keep intact the tendu-gathering income of tribals. All this will cost governments in the Centre and states far less than the price of medical treatment of tobacco victims

online available at - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Editorial/Smoke_it_out/articleshow/2251745.cms