India: Don''t Get Addicted to Tobacco Products, students told

Source from:  The Hindu 04/07/2015

Tobacco products such as cigarettes, bidis and gutka are highly toxic and cancerous and kill more people than all other major diseases put together. About 70 per cent of smoking-related deaths worldwide would be in developing countries alone by 2020, Vasanthkumar Mysoremath, convener, Anti-Tobacco Forum (ATF), Mysuru, has said.

Delivering a lecture at the Government First Grade College (GFGC) in Periyapatna recently, Mr. Mysoremath graphically demonstrated the ill-effects of consumption of smoke and non-smoke tobacco products like cancer, tuberculosis, pulmonary diseases, and heart diseases etc. He appealed to the students not to get addicted to tobacco products by making smoking a habit.

Mr. Mysoremath explained how tobacco cultivation had led to soil depletion, how food security had been endangered and how tobacco cultivation had been destroying forests for wood fuel for curing tobacco leaves.

Mr. Mysoremath was critical of the alleged half-hearted efforts being made by many countries, including India, who is signatories to UN/WHO-sponsored FCTC protocol.

"Some banks and financial institutions are falling head over heels for providing loans to tobacco growers whereas farmers, who are desisting tobacco farming and ensuring food security, are being denied that much of finance," he claimed.

Though tobacco was a killer weed, the Union government had been doling out huge subsidies in the form of infrastructure, various inputs, mechanised implements' assistance, etc, he lamented.

Mr. Mysoremath suggested that nationalised banks set up a revolving fund for financing farmers willing to surrender their tobacco licenses and surrender the barns and take up alternative crops.

After the lecture session, the students from families of tobacco growers, took part in an interactive session with the speaker.

"They pointed out that their parents were cultivating tobacco mainly due to economic reasons. They would discuss about the serious ill-effects of tobacco and dissuade their parents from cultivating tobacco in future," the speaker said in a release here.

Students said, they were aware of COTPA provisions about prohibition of smoking in public places. Many of them said, they bunked classes and assisted the family members in harvesting tobacco leaves.

Mr. Mysoremath urged the students to be vigilant about all these facts, debate among themselves, discuss the pros and cons of continuing tobacco cultivation with their parents and dissuade them from growing tobacco the next season.

He also appealed to the college faculty to play a crucial role in making anti-tobacco movement a people's movement. K.G. Rangaswamy, principal, GFGC presided and N. Vasantha Raju, Librarian, GFGC, were present. Enditem