WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, 2025
Shielding the Next Generation from Tobacco’s Grip
What leads a 13-year-old boy to smoke a bidi in secret? Or a young girl to start chewing pan masala laced with zarda?
Published on May 30, 2025
By EMN
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- What leads a 13-year-old boy to smoke a bidi in secret? Or a young girl to start chewing pan masala laced with zarda? In Nagaland—and across India—these are no longer rare occurrences.
- As we observe World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) 2025 with the theme: “Protecting Children from Tobacco Industry Interference”, we are reminded that our children are being deliberately targeted by an industry that profits from addiction.
- Nagaland is home to over 6 lakh tobacco users (GATS-2 & GYTS-4), with smokeless tobacco use more common than smoking. Products like khaini, gutka, and pan masala with zarda are sold in colourful, low-cost packets that closely resemble sweets—an intentional marketing ploy to attract young users. Meanwhile, cigarette companies use surrogate advertisements, point-of-sale displays, and digital platforms to subtly push their products to the youth.
- Although the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA), 2003, provides a robust legal framework, enforcement remains a challenge.
- Tobacco is still sold near schools. With the average age of initiation in Nagaland at 17.2 years, children as young as 12 can easily buy pan masala, zarda, khaini, bidi or cigarettes. Many youth are unaware that their tobacco use is both illegal and harmful.
- The damage goes far beyond health. The total economic cost attributable to tobacco use from all diseases in India for 35-69 years was estimated at INR 1.045 lakh crore (USD 22.4 billion) in 2011. At the household level, families bear the brunt—spending on medical care, losing income when the breadwinner falls ill, and facing long-term financial insecurity.
- The Health Department, through the National Tobacco Control Programme (NTCP), has initiated awareness campaigns, school-based interventions, and cessation support. But these efforts must be scaled up urgently.
- The path forward is clear:
- • Strengthen enforcement of COTPA, with routine inspections, penalties, and public accountability.
- • Implement targeted school and college awareness programmes to educate children and adolescents early and consistently.
- • Expand cessation support at educational institutions, and through accessible digital platforms.
- • Reduce access and availability, by raising taxes, banning single-stick sales, and limiting points of sale near youth settings.
- This year’s theme is a powerful reminder that protecting children from tobacco industry interference is a public duty. Tobacco use is not just a matter of personal choice—it is a public health threat, an economic burden, and a developmental obstacle.
- Policies must resonate with the realities on the ground—of children being drawn into addiction before they fully understand its consequences.
- Communities, parents, teachers, and local leaders must be at the forefront of this fight.
- Let it be a collective commitment—to act, to support, to enforce, and most importantly, to protect the next generation from tobacco.
- Tobacco control is not the job of one department or one day. It requires all of us.
- Do what you can. Support wherever you can.
- The time to act is now.
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- Dr. Arenla Walling,
- Additional Director (Dental) & State Nodal Officer,
- National Tobacco Control Programme, Nagaland.
Nagaland Districts
