Round the World

India: Tobacco tragedy

There is a lack of studies providing information about the load of forms of tobacco consumption in India and its states.

This study attempts to project the burden of forms of tobacco by the year 2025 and the risk of developing smoking and smokeless tobacco in India.

The prevalence of forms of tobacco were obtained from recent five different round of NSSO and the population of India and its states were taken from the report projected by Registrar General of India. Bivariate and multivariate techniques were employed using Microsoft Office Excel 2007 and StataSE 12. Individual effects of socio-demographic factors on smokeless and smoking tobacco were calculated using binary logistic regression.

The pattern of smoking tobacco increased in urban India from 101.8 million in the year 2015–106.2 million in the year 2025, whereas in rural India were declining throughout the period 2015–2025. The detailed analysis indicated regional diversity in the burden of smoking and smokeless tobacco. Age, sex, education, religion, social group, sectors and households’ type were significantly associated with smoking and smokeless tobacco (p < 0.001). The people belonging to other than Hindu community were 17% (OR = 1.17, CI: 1.13–1.22, P < 0.001) more likely to consume smoking tobacco than the Hindu. The numbers of smokers in the urban sector were significantly less than the rural area. Scheduled caste people were also utilizing less than the scheduled tribes but more than the OBC and others community people.

In view of increasing burden of smoking and smokeless tobacco in the urban sector and still high (in numbers) in the rural area is a burning need to initiate focused on control measures to combat associated cancer.

This paper examines popular perceptions of tobacco products and describes patterns of use among college youth in Karnataka, India. Data are drawn from 25 key informant interviews and six focus groups with male and female college students, interviews with shopkeepers, observational data on youth tobacco consumption, and a college-based survey. The survey was administered to 1587 males attending eleven colleges.

Forty-five percent (n=716) of college students surveyed had used tobacco products. Thirty-six percent (n=573) had tried cigarettes, 10% (n=157) had tried bidis, and 18% (n=290) had tried gutkha. Tobacco consumption among smokers was low; for daily smokers, the mean number of cigarettes smoked was 6 per day. Students attending professional colleges, including engineering, medicine, and law were significantly more likely to have ever smoked and to be daily smokers when compared to students enrolled in other courses of study.

In interviews, male students noted that smoking a cigarette enhanced one's manliness, relieved boredom, and eased tension. Although female students interviewed were non-smokers, several suggested that in the future, smoking might be an acceptable behavior among college-going females. When asked about their perceptions of smoking among youth in Western countries, the majority of students believed that three-quarters of male and female youth in the West smoked. This perception has been largely formed through media images, including satellite television and films.

With regard to addiction, it was widely believed that filter-tipped cigarettes were one of the most addictive products because they are made of better quality tobacco, and are milder and smoother to smoke. Therefore, a person could easily smoke more of them, which would lead to addiction. Another widely held belief was that the more expensive the cigarette, the less harmful it was for one's health.

Cigarette smoking is the most unnecessary of modern epidemics in the world today, according to the World Health Organization. In response to declining sales at home, multinational cigarette companies are increasingly targeting allegedly developing countries with their deadly products, often with the strong support of the U.S. government. While Asian countries have been most heavily targeted in recent years, Latin American countries have not been overlooked. This paper discusses macro-level and micro-level implications of the tobacco companies' promotions, based on data gathered in Mexico and Guatemala during 1990. Recommendations for combating the corporations' efforts are also discussed.