Surprising facts are coming from the recent Global Tobacco Atlas study for India. Yes, it is true that we have remarkably lowered down tobacco use in recent years. Yet, this country holds an economic cost of smoking, 1,818,691 million rupees. This cost is inclusive of both direct cost over healthcare and also indirect cost of losing productivity from illness or death. This report has been shared by the American Cancer Society (ACS) and US-based Vital Strategies.
According to Global Tobacco Atlas data released last week, more than 932,600 Indian lives are lost to tobacco-related diseases in last one year. India has 103 million adult smokers. Not just this, tobacco consumption is the reason of 17,887 deaths on weekly basis. Yes, it is happening in every week. Moreover, our country has around 625,000 child smokers aged 10–14 years.
As per this report, lesser number of children smokers exists in India in comparison to other Human Development Index (HDI) nations. However, it is still over 429,500 boys and 195,500 girls who smoke on daily basis. This report also says that more Indian men smoke cigarettes than Indian women. Report says that India has around 90 million male and 13 million female regular smokers.
Around 82.12 billion cigarettes were the annual production in our country.
Around the globe, smoking is a bigger curse as the combined revenue of six largest tobacco companies of the world was over USD 346 billion in Year 2016. This is not a small amount as this one is equal to 15% of the gross national income of India. Not just cigarettes, around 171 million people are having tobacco consumption in another means too and it is boosting cases of mouth cancer and throat cancer.
Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi, senior cancer surgeon from Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai says, “Certainly, a lot more sincerity is required to curb the tobacco usage habit. This bad habit is leading causing various sorts of health concerns like pulmonary diseases, cardio-vascular diseases, and certain types of cancers.”
This recent Global Tobacco Atlas study also stated that this tobacco based industry is actually a powerful community. And, they have no fear about possible actions of smaller nations. This powerful force has a strong existence across the world with their extensive resources and global market power. Only larger economies and developed nations can control them and they should help the smaller sized nations to face down this threat.