Ahead of the ‘World No Tobacco Day’ tomorrow, experts have urged the Rajasthan government to immediately ban tobacco products and implement the ‘The Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products Act’ in the state.
“With an aim to catch them young, the industry projects tobacco products as equivalent to adulthood, modernism, affluence, classiness and superiority,” said Pawan Singhal, associate professor at Swai Maan Singh (SMS) Hospital in Jaipur and the state patron of the Voice of Tobacco Victims (VOTV).
He said with the consumption of tobacco products, impotency among males was increasing while the reproductive capacity among females was decreasing, he said.
“The Rajasthan government should ban tobacco products as they have been fully banned in 14 states of the country,” Singhal demanded.
Sanjay Seth, Trustee, Sambandh Health Foundation urged the state government to implement ‘The Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA)’ strictly in Rajasthan so that tobacco products remain out of reach of children and the youth.
According to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS), conducted by the Health Ministry, 35 per cent of the adults in the age group of 15 years and above consume tobacco in some form or the other with 48 per cent males and 20 per cent females consuming tobacco in any form.
Nearly two in five (38 per cent) adults in rural areas and one in four (25 per cent) adults in urban areas use some form of tobacco.
About 32 per cent population or 1.5 crore people in Rajasthan use tobacco in any form, while lakhs of these people die each year due to tobacco-related diseases, the report says.
To check the menace of tobacco consumption, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has decided the theme for World No Tobacco Day 2017 as “Tobacco a threat to development”.