India, Lowest Consumer of Cigarettes Annually

The Global Tobacco Survey India report from 2010 highlighted that only 15 percent of the total tobacco consumption is from cigarettes in India. The remaining 85 percent of the tobacco consumption comes from smokeless tobacco like chewing tobacco products such as khaini, gutka and also from beedis.  With the prices of these tobacco products being low, with low tax applied to them, they are highly popular in the rural villages of India. These products don’t carry any pictorial warnings or even text warnings on them, leaving it to the smoker’s discretion.  In India 34.6 percent adult consume tobacco, out of this 25.9 percent use smokeless tobacco, 9.2 percent are Beedi smokers and about 5.7 percent users smoke cigarettes, stated the report.

The Cigarette Package Health Warnings International Status report gave the number of cigarette consumed in other countries; it showed Japan with the highest consumption of 2028, China consumes 1646, Pakistan 391, Nepal 274, Bangladesh 172 and India 99 cigarettes per head per annum.

With health issues given high priority a lot is being done to spread awareness to quit nocuous practices and to take steps towards better living. However, the need to spread this awareness is among the majority which is getting neglected in India. As stated the numbers of cigarettes consumed are least in the country but the amount of tobacco which is the root cause of the concern is still considerably high in the country.
 

Also Read: Smoking: The Cause of 100 Million Deaths in India