SHILLONG: Meghalaya has ranked fifth among Indian states in the Global Adult Tobacco Survey-2 (2016 -2017) with 47 per cent tobacco users. It is also the second in the ranking for smoking with 31.6 per cent smokers, next to Mizoram, and 15th for smokeless tobacco use at 20.3 per cent.
Even as cancer cases are on the rise in Meghalaya, there is no letdown in the number of tobacco users in the state.
The prevalence of tobacco use in the state is 47 per cent of all forms of tobacco. Among the users, 59.8 per cent are male and 34.2 per cent female.
Dr Lana L Nongbri, the State Nodal Officer for National Tobacco Control Programme (NTCP), NHM pointed out the importance of collective effort to be made by local government bodies in effective implementation of various tobacco control programme in combating the magnitude of tobacco use at a time when there are 1.3 billion tobacco users and nearly 9 million deaths every year worldwide.
The statement came from her a day before the state along with the rest of the world would observe the World No Tobacco Day on Sunday.
This year, May 31 will be marked with a theme ‘Protecting Youth from Industry Manipulation and preventing them from Tobacco and Nicotine use’ with an objective to empower youth and encourage them to be the torch bearers in the big campaign to fight against tobacco use and particularly of the manipulation strategies that tobacco industry adopts to attract and trap young people into the captivation of tobacco use.
Sharing her key note address on the theme of World No Tobacco Day this year, she described that for decades, tobacco industry has deliberately employed strategic, aggressive and well resourced tactics to attract youth to tobacco and nicotine products.
“Their approach is a calculated one; they design things in such a way to attract a new generation of users to replace the millions who die each year, i.e., attracting the youth,” she said.
A call for collective action is needed in pop culture, on social media, in the home, or in the classroom to reach out to and connect with youths to expose the industries’ manipulative tactics to create a new generation of tobacco users, she added.
She also said social media companies should ban advertising, promotion and sponsorship by tobacco industries and films, television production companies should pledge not to depict tobacco or e-cigarette use.
Asking schools to raise awareness on the dangers of nicotine and tobacco use by adoption of tobacco free campuses and refuse any form of sponsorship from nicotine and tobacco companies, she also asked youth groups to organise local events to educate their peers to build a movement for tobacco free generation and advocate for adoption of tobacco control policies in their community.
