Today, almost everyone knows about the story of Mukesh or the story of Sunita Tomar who died at a young age of 28. These stories have been played on television and in cinema halls hundreds of times but nobody seems to be paying enough attention.
A massive portion of the Indian population either chews tobacco or smokes cigareetes and beedis. Most people, when confronted with the truth about the toxicity of their consumption, have a ready list of numerous excuses as to why they smoke or chew tobacco or some simply say that it has become a habit and they find difficult to get rid of despite knowing the consequences. But they need to ask themselves, are they ready to allow tobacco ruin their lives? Are they ready to let their family suffer because they cannot get rid of their bad habits? And most importantly, they need to ask themselves, are they ready to die a painful death and let tobacco consume the whole of them?
According to the National Sample Survey, there are 184 million tobacco consumers, out of which 40% people chew various products that contain tobacco and 60% people smoke either cigarettes or beedis. Shockingly, about 20 million users belong to the age group of 10 – 14 years and about 5500 new users are added to this figure every day.
When a person smokes, he not only harms himself but also the people around him because inhaling the smoke is said to be more toxic than consuming it. Tobacco is the reason for 40% of all cancer cases in India and almost three out of five deaths in India are due to tobacco consumption.
A mere warning printed on the packets of cigarettes or chewing tobacco does so little to wake the person up to this reality. Even increasing taxes on tobacco products has done little to deter those addicted to tobacco.
There are many campaigns that are set to create awareness about the harmful effects of tobacco like the No Tobacco Day that is observed on the 31st of May every year which aims at encouraging the no-usage of tobacco for 24 hours and increasing the awareness about the ill-effects of tobacco.
But obviously the consumption will decrease only and only when people realise the damage themselves. Please kill the poison before it kills you.
–Aafreen Ansari
