DIMAPUR, AUGUST 16 : Dimapur women church leaders on Tuesday pledged to actively support anti tobacco campaign from their respective churches at an advocacy workshop on the involvement of women church leaders in tobacco control programme organised by National Tobacco Control Programme (NTCP) Dimapur.
“Tobacco kills more than AIDS, legal drugs, illegal drugs, road accidents, murder, and suicide combined. No other consumer product is as dangerous, or kills as many people. Half of the users die in middle age between 35-69 years old according to Tobacco Atlas 2012”, informed Associate Professor of School of Nursing, CIHSR Dimapur A. Purnungla Aier.
She was speaking on the topic “The Impact of Tobacco Epidemic: Involvement of the Churches in Tobacco Control Program”.
India has one of the highest rates of oral cancer in the world with 90% of the patients being Tobacco chewers. Half of all cancers in men in India are tobacco related where over 60% of those below 40 years are smokers. According to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey-2010, 47.9% of males and 20.3% of females currently use tobacco in some form in India, updated Aier to the women church leaders.
As per Aier, Nagaland with 57% is the second highest consumer of tobacco in the country. Aier validated the statement through the National Health Mission Director Dr Sukhato A Sema’s documentation where it stated that as per the Nagaland School Oral Health Survey 2014 report, 28.3% of school going children is smokeless tobacco users while 14.8% are into smoking habits and 41.2% children are engaged by parents to buy tobacco.
On the district-wise profile of tobacco consumption, Dimapur has the highest number of consumers followed by Kohima.
Maintaining that mothers are the most influential people on planet Earth, Aier articulated women play a pivotal role in the emergence of a healthy society and women can facilitate millions of current tobacco users to quit the habit.
“If anyone in the world has the power and the potential to change the hearts and minds of this world, it must be the Christian women” maintained Aier. And to do this she added, Women need to initiate prohibition of tobacco advertising, raising a mass movement against tobacco, sensitizing and educating all about hazards of tobacco.
Despite the ban, sale and advertising of tobacco products is rampant around educational institutions. The women church leaders should stand to oppose the sale and consumption of tobacco within the confines of the church, expressed Aier. She concluded that as an influential community, they should support tobacco control policies and help tobacco farmers’ shift from tobacco to other crops.
NTCP Psychologist Imkumla Aier addressing the women church leaders on the topic “behavioral effects of Tobacco addiction” accentuated that if both parents smoke there is a high possibility that the child will begin smoking than if only one parent smokes or if neither parent smokes. But even if one parent smokes, this may influence the child to smoke more than if neither parent smokes added the psychologist.
Drawing attention on the psychological aspect, Aier underlined that once smoking is established as a habit, a number of factors contribute to its persistence and resistance to change. As children grow older they recognize that people around them who smoke do not die instantly and that heart attacks or cancer are not a certainty. Younger adolescents particularly live in the present and are not preoccupied with the future, she said.
As per psychologist Aier, knowledge of the dangers of smoking often motivates a preadolescent to become a crusader against smoking, while the social pressures occurring during early adolescence may outweigh the effects of this concrete knowledge.
According to Dimapur District Nodal Officer Dr. C.Tetseo, 25 churches of Dimapur town participated for the advocacy workshop which was held at West City building, DC Court junction Dimapur.
