Oral Cancer May See a Decline Due to Gutka Ban

There are over 4,000 different chemicals found in tobacco products and their smokes, out of these over 60 chemicals have been identified to cause cancer.

The tobacco products can be separated into two categories, they are smoke emitting items like cigarettes and bidis and smoke free ones like gutkha, mava, khaini and pan masala.  The estimates show that the number of tobacco users in India is 27.5 crore. In which 25.9 percent use smoke free tobacco, 5.7 percent smoke cigarettes and about 9.2 percent smoke bidis.

With the high number or population engaged in chewing tobacco, over 80,000 new cases of oral cancer gets recorded each year, giving India the title of world’s oral cancer capital. However, India has levied the ban on gutkha and pan masala in 16 states and 3 Union territories.

The other concern was the high risk caused by the influence of tobacco on children, also seen as a significant reason to justify the ban by the survey respondents. With the easy availability of tobacco products it compromises the well being of children the India.

The ban has fairly succeeded in putting a lid on the number of people using gutkha and pan masala.  Among the tobacco products gutka and pan masala accounts to the high cancer cases in India. The government has also imposed many rules on smoking and the packaging of tobacco products to diminish the number of cancer cases, in order to curtail the number of death caused by tobacco consumption.

Also Read: Smoking Can Rot Your Brain, Say Researchers