involved looking at the smoking patterns of almost 75,000 individuals

While smoking is becoming increasingly unfashionable in the western world and the numbers of people who are quitting is rising, in poorer countries like India smoking is on the increase and this is causing huge health problems.

It is estimated that in India almost 1 million Indians will die from the effects of smoking by the year 2010 and that most of these Indians will be from the poorer and more uneducated parts of society. The statistics show that twenty percent or more men who die from the ages of 30 and 69 will do so because of a smoking related disease. The research which was undertaken by scientists from the UK, Canada and India also noted that five percent of women in the same age bracket will also succumb to a smoking related disease.

The research was extremely extensive and involved looking at the smoking patterns of almost 75,000 individuals who had died from smoking between the years 2001 and 2003. Nine hundred data collectors were employed to look at over 1 million households and establish smoking patterns in them. It was established that there are around 120 million people smoking in India at present of which the vast majority are men. Over 30 percent of men between the ages of 30 and 69 smoke cigarettes or locally made “bidis” which have a lower tobacco content and are considerably cheaper then normal cigarettes.

The Indian government is aware that they need to start taking the problem of smoking seriously as it is sitting on a health time bomb. The Indian state is already under too much pressure to cope with looking after all of its citizens and it doesn’t need thousands of people getting sick and taking up valuable hospital space. The Indian government should consider putting taxes on cigarettes and also increasing the amount of public awareness campaigns showing the dangers of smoking. The campaign should be focused on the illiterate and uneducated people who seem to smoke more than the wealthier sections of society.