No smoking day is celebrated in United Kingdome in every third week of March. It is mainly an awareness day to help smokers who want to quit smoking. It was first held in 1984. The main purpose of this day is to spread awareness about the harmful health effect of tobacco consumption through cigarettes and bidis.
‘Smoking causes cancer’ this phrase is very much common to us. We can see this phrase in Cinema halls, malls and every other place surrounding us. This can even be seen on the packets of Cigarette boxes. Tobacco smoke contains more than 7000 chemicals, including hundreds that are toxic and 70 that cause cancer. Not only has it caused cancer but many deadly diseases like heart disease, lung disease, stroke, diabetes, Chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD) which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis. It was also found from recent studies that those women who smoke more, likely to die from COPD than male smokers.
Smokers not only harm themselves but also their dear ones around them. It observed that passive smokers contributes 4100- death among non-smoking adults and 400 infants death every year. Children with direct exposure to smokers had an increased rate of sudden infant death and other respiratory problems.
In India the Government has enacted various tobacco control measures:
1. It enacted the Cigarettes Act (Regulation of Production, Supply and Distribution) in 1975. The statutory warning “cigarette smoking is injurious to health” was mandatorily displayed on all cigarette packages, cartons and advertisements of cigarettes.
2. India adopted the WHO Framework Convention of Tobacco Control (FCTC) and passed the “Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce Production, Supply and Distribution)” Act in 2003.
3. The National Tobacco Control Programme (NTCP) was launched by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of India in 2007- 08 to bring about greater awareness about the harmful effects of tobacco use and about the Tobacco Control Laws and to facilitate effective implementation of the Tobacco Control Laws. (COTPA 2003)
Though many measures and policy were implemented by the government, it was us who have to take a strong step toward this problem because if there is a will there is a way. If you want to lead a happy and healthy life we have to quit smoking.
Any tobacco user willing to quit tobacco can give a missed call on 011-22901701 for registration. You can also e-register yourself by filling in your mobile number and email ID through http://www.nhp.gov.in/quit-tobacco. Thereafter, a two-way SMS process begins, wherein the registered user will be sent a welcome QUITNOW SMS, immediately from the short-code allocated through National Informatics Centre viz.5616115. This will be followed by more SMSs, some of which will request-reply back. An exclusive email ID “quittobacco@gov.in’ has been formulated for purposes of sending mailers for promotion of the project as well as to inform people at large regarding the ill effects of tobacco use at regular intervals.
Source: Internet
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