ESCHEW TOBACCO

From Sampath’s Desk:

 ESCHEW TOBACCO

31 MAY

WORLD NO TOBACCO DAY 

 

Tobacco is an agricultural product - brown cut up leaves. Tobacco contains harmful substance ‘nicotine’. Treated tobacco leaves are used to make cigarettes which some people smoke. Some others chew raw, treated or scented tobacco along with betel-leaves. Tobacco, in whatever form consumed, is injurious to health. While chewing, nicotine is absorbed through gums and in due course causes health problems in mouth, jaws, gums, teeth, tongue, larynx, lungs, etc.

 

Nicotine has a deleterious and toxic effect on smokers. It suddenly increases blood pressure, heart rate and flow of blood from the heart, and in the long run makes arteries narrow down eventually causing blocks. Carbon monoxide, another by-product of cigarettes reduces the amount of oxygen blood normally carries. Consequently, an imbalance in demand for oxygen by cells and the amount of oxygen blood is able to supply occurs which ultimately ruins the smoker’s health. Smoking blackens the lips too.

 

Medical studies have proved that smoking can cause chronic lung disease, coronary heart disease, and stroke, not to speak of deadly cancer of the lungs, larynx, esophagus, mouth, and bladder. Women who take tobacco are prone to face adverse birth outcomes including babies with low birth weight that can be linked with an increased risk of infant mortality and with a variety of infant health disorders. Passive smokers are at as much risk as active smokers due to Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) factor. It also causes lower respiratory tract infections besides increasing the risk of coronary heart disease.

Doctors and scientists have now found out a tertiary ill-effect of smoking in that the harmful solid nicotine particles do not escape up above along with smoke but get stuck up on soft surfaces say on clothes, sofa-sets, curtains, screens, walls, etc. in the house and keep on emitting noxious properties till their final disappearance due to evaporation which may take some days. Smoking is addictive. Virtually no benefits flow out of smoking, though smokers keep on claiming that it gives them energy, freshness and relaxation, which are only figments of their own deceptive and illusory imagination and harmful fallacy. The fact is that they cannot live without it. Say ‘no’ to tobacco in any form, the first time and every time. The other forms are hukka, ganja, gutka, etc. 

 

Even though a statutory warning ‘cigarettes are injurious to health’ is printed on the cigarette cartons as per government’s directives, it has neither stopped smoking nor reduced cigarette sales. The government gets revenue by levying taxes on cigarettes, beedies, and other tobacco products But the revenue is not worth considering its ill-effect of shortened longevity of smokers including death in many cases.

 

Cigarette was introduced in India by westerners especially British Lords who were ruling India. Once a preserve of the British rulers and the elite community, the practice has now become all-pervasive. In India, beginning as a prestige and wealth symbol, smoking is now prevalent among almost all the echelons of society. Teenagers take to this habit initially as a fun and then irretrievably get entrapped. Tax on cigarettes and tobacco products is increased budget after budget purportedly to discourage smoking. But that never happens.

 

School and college students should not only keep themselves away from the insalubrious habit but also carry on an anti-smoking movement as teamwork and social objective to ultimately stamp it out. They should not fritter away their energies by getting themselves enslaved in any unhealthy practices including smoking. Every youth should not only be a non-smoker and teetotaler but also make others so. Nothing is impossible. It requires unflagging conviction and unrelenting effort to carry on the campaign till you succeed. By remaining healthy we can achieve many things. Why shorten our life by becoming an addict to smoking - a bane and curse? India needs the services of healthy citizens to take the nation forward to reach many milestones.

 

Supreme Court had banned smoking in public places. It is not just the duty of law and order machinery to enforce the law, but each and every individual should ensure it. We should dissuade gullible people to keep away from the noxious habit. Come on, let us dedicate ourselves to root out tobacco from our lives in all its forms and live with robust health.

WORLD NO-TOBACCO DAY is celebrated on May 31 every year.

 

 

(R.SAMPATH)

12.3.2006