World No Tobacco Day: 50% Indian smokers wish to quit the habit, but fail to do so

The Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS 2017) has revealed that over 55% smokers and 50% of smokeless tobacco users in India want to quit the habit, but have been unsuccessful.

Much of the failure in quit rate of tobacco use in India has been attributed to lack of trained health professionals to engage in tobacco cessation program. "Although with brief advise there was 55% quit rate, 23% relapsed later due to the addiction. Tobacco is reportedly more addictive than any other substance of abuse," Dr Brindha Sitaram, psycho oncologist at the Centre of Psycho-oncology for Education and Research (COPER) at HCG, Bengaluru.
On the occasion of World No Tobacco Day, the COPER is organising a two day workshop titled “Tobacco Cessation : Assessment Management” for healthcare professionals on May 31 and June 1.


There will be a multi-disciplinary team which will train the doctors on how to deal with diet, physiotherapy, yoga therapy to implement tobacco cessation plan.

"In my experience as a psycho-oncologist, I have seen patients struggling to come out of the habit.. So it is vital for doctors to be trained. This is a vital step to assist tobacco consumers to quit the habit,'' said Dr Sitaram.



Smoky Facts
1. Tobacco contains 4,000 different types of chemical and over 60 of them are cancer causing agents. The main Chemical NICOTINE is very addicve and causes lung cancer, head and neck cancers.
2.India is the second largest consumer of tobacco in the world (26.7 Crore use both chewing /smoking tobacco).
3. In India, nearly 3500 people die due to Tobacco use everyday. In 2018, approximately 3,17,928 died due to tobacco
use in the country.

The two day workshop will be held at Renaissance Race Course hotel, Bengaluru.