Dhrubo Hojai, director of state health services, speaks at the seminar on Friday. Picture by UB Photos

Oct. 12: Rampant tobacco consumption among people is resulting in loss of manpower and man-days compared to what the state earns as revenue through the sale of tobacco.

Despite the fact that 93.5 per cent of people in the city believe that smoking causes serious health hazards and 87.6 per cent believe that passive smoking leads to serious illnesses, people find it difficult to give up tobacco use.

Health experts during a seminar organised by the state cell of the Tobacco Control Programme, Assam, today revealed this.

The situation of tobacco consumption in the state is based on the findings of the Global Adults Tobacco Survey India, 2009-2010.

World Health Organisation and the Union ministry of health and family welfare supported the programme.

“The mortality related to tobacco consumption is huge and it has been found to be a prime cause of cancers and various cardio-vascular and lung diseases. We are actually losing a large number of efficient manpower and man-days because of the tobacco usage, which accounts to more than the revenue earned by the state through tobacco consumption in a year. In fact, 14 states in the country have already banned the sale of gutkha under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006. Under this act, any food product containing tobacco can be banned,” Dhrubo Hojai, director of the state health services, said.

Tobacco products cannot be completely banned under the Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003.

“The unfortunate part is that even though majority of the people here are aware of the negative outcomes of tobacco consumption, they continue to take tobacco in the form of cigarettes and other smokeless forms. However, 33.1 per cent of tobacco users attempted to quit smoking and 21.2 per cent attempted to quit smokeless tobacco. Since many tobacco users tend to suffer from withdrawal symptoms, they find it difficult to give up its use. Herein comes the role for cessation centres where such people can avail counselling on how they can quit and handle the withdrawal symptoms,” L. Swasticharan, chief medical officer of the Union ministry of health and family welfare, said.

People are more exposed to passive smoking at home than at public places. While 43.8 per cent people in urban areas are exposed to passive smoking at home, 26.8 per cent and 33.8 per cent are exposed to passive smoking at their workplace and other public places, respectively.

“When a person smokes at home, he incites the dangers of smoking to all family members. As such, their chances of suffering from tobacco-related diseases increase along with that of the smokers,” Swasticharan said.

The health officials also said the process is on to ban gutkha in the state under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, though it may take a while to implement it.