No Smoking Day: 8th March The Importance of Smoking Cessation

Smoking of tobacco is one of the most important preventable causes of deaths worldwide, with 1 smoking associated death occurring every 6 seconds that results in around 6 million deaths annually.

It has been estimated every cigarette smoked by an individual, causes a reduction of life span by 11 minutes and that on average, tobacco users lose 15 years of life. More than 75% of these deaths occur in middle- and low-income countries. It is important to note that nearly 10% of these deaths occur among non-smokers, due to the harmful effects of passive smoking. There are enormous annual global economic costs involved, totalling more than USD 1 trillion (directly due to health care costs and indirectly, due to loss of productivity).

India is the 3rd largest tobacco producer and has the 2nd largest number of tobacco users in the world. In India, there are over 1.3 million tobacco related deaths annually. Nearly 25% of all deaths due to cardiovascular causes and over 75% of all deaths due to respiratory causes are smoking related. Indian data reveals a high incidence of oral cancer, which exceeds even the incidence of lung cancer, such that nearly 50% of all cases of oral cancer globally are detected in India every year. Smoking also increases the risk of Tuberculosis by two-fold.

Apart from the adverse health effects of tobacco use, there are also adverse environmental effects. It has been estimated that over 84 megatons of green house gases are generated globally. Also, more than 600 million trees are chopped down every year by the tobacco industry.

The second Wednesday of March every year has been designated as "No Smoking Day". This year, it is on the 8th of March.

The main objectives are two-fold: to raise awareness among people of the harmful effects of smoking and to encourage people to quit smoking.

As this is such a vitally important public health issue globally, The World Health Organization (WHO), in 1988 passed a resolution to observe the 31st of May every year as "World No Tobacco Day".