Puffing away to the grave yard : Topping the infamy list
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: February 02, 2013 -

Tobacco products which are widely in use in the State :: Pix - TSE

A cigarette has fire at one end and a fool at the other.

Rephrase this and it could well mean a cigarette or a bidi has fire at one end and 52 percent of the population of Manipur at the other end.

Or it could be 52 percent of the people consuming tobacco products such as Khaini, Talab, Zarda or anything tobacco based. Fifth rank Nationwide on tobacco consumption. Certainly not on the merit list but on the infamy list.

A grim reality.

Rampant drug abuse and alcoholism and now tobacco consumption. The irony is also palpable.

A sports powerhouse, which has given some of the hottest sports star to the country, but yet again a place which has managed to make it to the top five in terms of tobacco consumption and clearly health as an issue does not seem to figure high on the priority list of the common people.

Lack of awareness, it cannot be, given the fact that there are social movements to check the consumption of tobacco products such as Khaini, Zarda and Talab.

Indifference may be more like it. Understanding the psyche of human beings is not easy ana this has been brought out lucidly in a place where more than half of her population consume tobacco products but which has never failed to set the benchmark in the field of sports.

And sports is all about good health, physical and mental capabilities. The figure is frightening too.

Official records say that 90 pc of mouth/oral cancer, 80 pc of lung cancer, 60 pc of lung infections and 60 pc of heart attacks can be attributed to consumption of tobacco.

But has these figures meant anything to the tobacco users ? The rising trend of tobacco consumption in the State points to the contrary.

Legislation may work, but only to an extent. Ultimately it is about the choice that people make.

That Governments across the world are serious about checking the consumption of tobacco products is obvious.

High taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products, discouraging mass media, including films, from showing their protagonists smoking on screen, the graphic warnings carried on cigarette packs are all indications of how seriously all regimes have come to View the hazards of smoking and tobacco consumption.

The corporate world too has followed suit with no smoking norms strictly enforced in the work place.

These measures however do not seem to have had a positive impact on the people of Manipur, if the latest figure of 54 pc of her population listed as tobacco consumers is anything to go by.

The figures would have been more illuminating, if the age profile of the tobacco consumers had been given.

How about the youngsters, how are the teens faring ? Take the anti-tobacco campaign to the schools and colleges.

Educate the youngsters on the harmful effect of tobacco consumption.

The proposed two day anti-tobacco campaign set to be launched in the North East States on February 27 and 28 will be all that more beneficial if the drive is taken to the educational institutions too, for this is where the future of the land and the people lie.

Maybe some research work may also be done on how to make tobacco users give up their habit more easily.

It is not for nothing that Oscar Wilde once famously quipped, 'Giving up smoking is easy. I have done it a hundred times.'