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Carrying on with its “No tobacco, No Alcohol” agenda with the avowed objective to free society from the shackles of these age-old addictions, the ministry has now gone one step further by coming out with a monograph that seeks to bring all the ill effects of bidi smoking into sharp focus. An estimated 100 million people ~ mostly the poor and the illiterate ~ smoke bidi in India and 200,000 tuberculosis deaths are due to these hand-rolled cigarettes, a health ministry report says. The monograph has data, culled from various sources for 2000-2004, to prove that bidi smoking is more harmful than cigarette smoking, the health secretary Mr Naresh Dayal notes. According to the report, bidi is the most widely used form of tobacco products in India. Of the estimated 240 million tobacco end-users, 100 million people are bidi smokers. One million of the estimated two million cases of tuberculosis in India are due to smoking. Releasing the monograph “Bidi Smoking and Public health” here yesterday, Mr Dayal said, “the government was making efforts to implement a pilot project that would not only assess the actual nicotine content of bidi as well as cigarette but also have it put on the packaging” so that the consumers could be warned in advance against the fag’s hazardous contents. Enlisting the harmful effects of the bidi, Mr Dayal said: “This report would dispel the myth that bidi smoking was less injurious than cigarettes. We must take this message down to the poor and the illiterate thousands who are involved in the bidi manufacturing industry, particularly those engaged in bidi-rolling of tendu leaves.” About 85 % of the world’s bidi is produced in India and there are 290,000 bidi-making units in India, the report states. “West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are centers of bidi rolling because of the availability of cheap labour,” Mr Dayal said. These poor people are not even aware, he said, that they are embracing death in the form of lung cancer, oral cancer, heart diseases and other respiratory diseases. “We are also deliberating on the issue to provide alternative jobs to these field workers,” Mr Dayal said. Unfortunately, it would not be an easy task because the matter would not only involve the MOHFW but concerted efforts of a slew of ministries and departments, said Mr B K Prasad, joint secretary, MOHFW. “For instance, to implement a project providing alternative employment for field workers engaged in tendu leaves rolling, we would need help from ministries like environment and forests, labour, agriculture, rural development along with the health ministry.” According to the monograph, prepared with the support of the World Health Organisation, Centre for Disease-control and Prevention in Atlanta and the US Department of Health and Human Sciences, bidi smoking is predominantly a male practice, more prevalent in rural areas, and is more common among Muslims, closely followed by Hindus. “Bidi smoke has proven A carcinogens, toxins and poisonous substances and contains high levels of tobacco-specific nitrosamines ~ the two most potent cancer causing agents,” says Mr Prakash C. Gupta, who edited the monograph. “Not only adults, but rural children and youth are in the grip of this demon.” © Copyright 2006 by CigarettesOn.Com |
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