Tobacco kills-make Ranchi smoke free zone

Sanjeev Shekhar
Ranchi-
While everybody at the seminar organised under tha aegis of government of Jharkhand agreed that tobacco in any form is harmful to humanity. Consumed directly or indirectly, it damanges human health. When everybody spoke about the measures to control the use of tobacco, no-one, except one, spoke of stopping production of such tobacco products that directly effects human body.

The BJP legislator from Ranchi town C.P.Singh was the only one to make a public statement that he consumes tobacco and he really want to get rid of it. It' s intoxicating and thus hard to give up. "I'll like to point out that why doesn't the government stop producing such harmful materials when it's dangerous to public health? Time has come to give the issue a serious thinking," he said.

It's easy to nab people who consume it but what about those people who openly sell it at every nook and corner of the city, kasba and even villages. Why the government follows such double standard? Government talks of punishing the culprits who smoke, but the law says nothing about those who sell? These were certain queries that kept haunting the minds of the people at the seminar-cum-workshop all through the day.

Tobacco, in any form or type, kills people and is one of the leading causes of deaths in the world. With this message and focus on the issue, the sensitization workshop for law enforcement officials and NGO personnel on tobacco control kicked off.

Message was clear, make ‘Ranchi-smoke free’ and for this, the law enforcing agencies might have to deal with iron hand for the cause of saving humanity. “It’s easy to frame law but implementation of the same will be a bigger challenge,” firmly believed the Health Minister, Bhanu Pratap Sahi while inaugurating the convention here on Saturday.

The issue haunts in the minds of conscious people vigorously in the contemporary times. Youths in college congregate near betel shops and are found smoking, eating gutka and even chewing tobacco. Despite no-smoking board put up at public places, the impact in the minds of young people is yet to gain ground. For this, the law enforcing officials will have to deal with such people or may be compelled to punish,” said the Minister.

Sahi emphasized the need to begin with Ranchi to make it smoke free and directed the officials of the department concerned to handover the task to 55 NGOs in 55 wards of Ranchi to spread the message regarding adverse impact of smoking or consumption of tobacco for that matter. “The person who smokes is not causing damage to himself but is also causing damage to those who are sitting beside him, thereby making others passive smokers,” Bhanu asserted.

According to the comparative analysis of WHO (World Health Organisation) Framework convention on tobacco control globally tobacco kills 5.4 million people annually. If unchecked the tobacco toll by 2030 would be 10 million deaths annually, amounting to one billion lives in this century.

The secretary health Dr Pradeep Kumar was vocal in pointing out that the intensive campaign through various mediums including advertisement and media would help in inculcating the message strongly. “The need of the hour is to spread the message down the line that how tobacco is dangerous to life? It’s a prolonged struggle and a challenge in which the curative part is equally important as like preventive and counseling,” Dr. Kumar stated.

Others who spoke on the occasion included Dr Bijon Mishra, representative of a prominent NGO Swati Paramar, Dr. V.N.Singh and Dr Rana J. Singh.

Sanjeev Shekhar
Journalist/Media Consultant/PR