Street play, paintings create awareness against tobacco use

Varanasi: With this year’s theme –‘We need food not Tobacco’, the faculty of Dental Sciences, the Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University organised various programmes to mark the World No Tobacco Day (May 31) on Wednesday.
A street play was staged to make people aware of tobacco related health problems and a painting competition was held in which students displayed the harmful effects of tobacco through their art. Besides, a ‘special camp’ was organised at the Tobacco Prevention Clinic in the Public Health Dentistry unit, where about 10 people are counselled every day.
The former dean of the faculty of Dental Sciences, Prof TP Chaturvedi, also the convener of the Anti-Tobacco Campaign -save the world and Central Council Member of the Indian Dental Association (IDA), said that the World No Tobacco Day is celebrated on May 31 every year since 1987 by the World Health Organization (WHO) to raise awareness about harmful effects of tobacco consumption.
The objective of the theme is to raise awareness about alternative crop production such as nutritious crops etc and marketing opportunities for farmers of tobacco, he said. In India, almost 50% tobacco users chew tobacco followed by smoking and dual use of tobacco. At present, around 27 crores (270 millions) people consume tobacco in any form in India. Alcohol and tobacco cause approximately 80% of cases of cancer of mouth and throat in men and about 65% in women.
Tobacco causes 13% death of men and 5% of women in India. It is one of the causative factors for abortion, low birth weight of child, death of infants, uterus cance, congenital problems in children.
There is a need to address determinants of chewing tobacco use with state level monitoring and socio-economic inequalities, progress and review of the taxation on it, he said. The total costs of tobacco equates to 1.04% of India’s GDP, and direct medical costs equate to 5.3% of total health expenditure. “Our attempt must be to reduce use of cigarette consumption and chewing tobacco for a healthy society and should focus on nutritious food instead of it,” he said