Indian Women Outdo Men in Smoking

Bangalore: An average Indian female smoker smokes more cigarettes a day than male, 7 as compared with 6.1. Further, an average Indian woman is taking up smoking at 17.5 years as against 18.8 years among men, as reported by Kounteya Sinha for TOI.  However, 21 percent Indian male tobacco users smoke daily as against only 3 percent of women. And almost half of Indian men (47.9 percent) aged 15 years and above consume tobacco.

Smokeless tobacco use is high among Indian men at 32.9 percent. Further, nearly 206 million Indians use smokeless form of tobacco (loose-leaf chewing tobacco and snuff). One in every five female tobacco users in India uses the smokeless form of tobacco as against one in 10 who smoke. These are the new numbers on global tobacco use, as published by the medical journal, Lancet.

It is noted that an average Indian smoker smokes two cigarettes a day. At 16.1 percent, men smoking bidis was common. The percentage of men who used both smoked and smokeless products was second highest in India at 9.3 percent.

China has the highest number of tobacco users (300.8 million), followed by India (274.9 million).