Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Proposal to promote ‘smoke-free’ villages

— Photo: S.R. Raghunathan

Spreading awareness: (From left) S. Elango, Director - Public Health, Government of Tamil Nadu; Dinesh Bhatnagar, Additional Director-General of Health Services, Government of India; V. Shantha, Chairman, Cancer Institute, Adyar, and Vineet Gill Munish, NPO, WHO India, at the regional advocacy workshop (southern region) on ‘Tobacco Control Laws and Related Issues’ in India in Chennai on Friday.

CHENNAI: The government proposes to promote the concept of ‘smoke-free’ villages as part of the multi-pronged campaign against tobacco products, S. Elango, Director of Public Health (DPH), said on Friday.

In his key-note address at a regional advocacy workshop on ‘Tobacco Control Law and Measures,’ organised at the Adyar Cancer Institute, Dr. Elango said the proposal, which moots rewarding villages that do not sell tobacco products with monetary incentives, is pending approval by the Centre.

The DPH drew out the contrast between the illusion of smoking being a macho statement among youth with chilling medical evidence of chronic smokers developing impotence.

Surveys showed that 37 per cent of children getting initiated into smoking were under 10 years of age while 12 per cent of youth were hooked to the habit.

While the latest family health survey stated that 11 per cent of women in India smoked, the prevalence was lower (3 per cent) in Tamil Nadu. The risk for women who smoked included infertility and proneness to beget low-birth-weight babies, he said.

Pointing out that Tamil Nadu had pioneered anti-tobacco legislation much before tobacco regulation became a Central Act, Dr. Elango said the State was also leading the way in implementing the new law.

The State, which was quick to form three-member squads (from Departments of Health, Education and Police) at the block-level, had also recorded most fines (Rs.5.6 lakh) collected from violators of the ban on smoking in public places.

Dinesh Bhatnagar, Additional Director-General, Health Services, Delhi, said alongside the imposition of fines on violators of the smoking ban, emphasis was equally given to mobilising public opinion against tobacco use in any form.

Dr. Bhatnagar pointed out that an estimated one million deaths in the country each year were attributable to tobacco-related causes.

The huge economic costs for treating tobacco-related diseases were to the tune of Rs.31,000 crore, he said.

Vinit Gill Munish, representative of Tobacco-Free Initiative, WHO-India, said the importance of raising tobacco-related issues and helping States find solutions could be gauged from the fact that the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was the first health treaty to be formulated in the 60 years of WHO activity.

Jagdish Kaur, Health Services official, said the implementation of the Central Act remained a State subject. She called for urgency in the campaign against tobacco, which was the only legal product that was a merchant of death.

Apart from implementing the law with the help of other departments and creating awareness at the school-level, it was also imperative to engage tobacco cultivating ryots in alternative crops, he said.

V. Shantha, chairperson of the Institute, while welcoming the legislation, pointed out that reaching the endpoint would require careful planning and sustained efforts that were both multi-sectorial and multi-professional.

Underlining prevention as a pivotal point in the drive against tobacco, Dr. Shantha called for aggressive awareness campaigns to reach out to the maximum people in urban and rural areas. The media, print and the electronic entities, should also throw weight behind the effort, she said.

Prevention has to start at the school level with the formulation of anti-tobacco messages in the curriculum and involvement of parents, teachers and medical professionals, Dr. Shantha said.

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