Delhi's smokers younger than before: Health experts

Delhi's smokers are getting younger and younger every year, with many hooked on to trendy sheeshas under the impression that they are less harmful than cigarettes, experts said today.
Dr Sajeela Maini, who heads the Tobacco Cessation Centre at the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (SGRH) here, said they have been getting patients "as young as 12 or 13 years" who are being treated for tobacco addiction.
"School children are taking up smoking earlier than before. What is more dangerous is that many of these young smokers are also taking drugs," she told PTI.
On World No Tobacco Day, marked across the world today, doctors also cautioned against the use of sheesha in hookah bars -- popular among school students -- saying that its consumption was equally harmful.

Maini said the smoking habit was growing both in rural and urban areas, among both men and women.
"Earlier, 10 per cent of smokers in our centre were women; now 30 per cent are," the author of 'The Last Puff' said.

She quoted researchers as saying that almost 70 per cent of smokers wanted to quit but could not do so because of the addictive quality of nicotine, present in tobacco.
Doctors at other leading hospitals in the city said the consumption of tobacco -- both when smoked (cigarettes, cigars, pipes and bidis) or when consumed (khaini, gutka etc) -- was on the rise.

Tobacco smoke contains several chemicals, which can cause cancer, besides heart and lung diseases.
"More women are smoking in urban and rural areas," Dr Surender Dabas, Director, Head, Neck and Thorax Surgical Oncology, Fortis Memorial Research Institute, said.
Maini, who has held health camps in suburban areas of Delhi, where the rural population is high, said she was shocked to see "a huge number" of women smokers there.
"Once I had gone to a village area in south Delhi, and there we found many cases of women lining up in our camp, saying that they were addicted to bidi and hookah. More than half of the cases were of women," she said.

The experts also warned that many youngsters in metropolitan cities such as Delhi were introduced to smoking and drugs at popular events such as rock concerts.
"Many of the youth, who otherwise wouldn't take up smoking or do drugs, are goaded by their peers or even strangers at these concerts to 'try it'. And, subsequently, they get hooked on to it," Maini said.
The SGRH doctor also said the "mild" label on cigarettes was merely an "eyewash", as "such cigarettes did not cause much sensation in the throat, leading to greater addiction, and hence greater risk of contracting cancer."
Dr Rajesh Chawla, senior consultant, Respiratory and Critical Care, at the Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals here, said tobacco consumption was one of the leading causes of death.

"People who think that smoking bidi is an alternative to and safer than cigarettes need to understand that it is equally harmful," he said.
"By 2030, 80 per cent of all tobacco deaths are going to occur in developing countries. While tobacco consumption is decreasing in the developed countries, it is increasing at an alarming rate in the developing nations," Chawla said.
Nearly 35 per cent or 27.5 crore adults in India consume tobacco in some form or the other, the central government had said last April.
According to the World Health Organization, "12 hours after quitting smoking, the carbon monoxide level in the blood drops to normal.