Tobacco smoking is one of the world’s and India’s biggest and most preventable cause of early death and a blight on culture and society. With 120 million tobacco smokers, India is the second largest consumer of combustion-based tobacco products globally and witnesses over one million deaths per year due to tobacco related illness. Nearly 2 lac Head & Neck cancers are diagnosed yearly out of which 80000 are of oral cavity exposed to some form of tobacco.
57% of all head & Neck cancers occurs in India and 60-80% are of advanced stage and constitute 30% of all cancers in India. Despite efforts to reduce tobacco burden by means of taxation, stringent labeling requirements, etc., Cigarette, Bidi, Cigars volumes have not witnessed significant decline in India as Tobacco industry will never be closed as being very rich so have got clout with politicians, bureaucrats, judges etc. So a pathy way…
