TOBACCO and its all-encompassing Health Effects

The white men came in ships to coastal India, in the 17^th century with a ship full of plants. One such plant was Tobacco brought by the Portuguese in 1605. Over a period of time Tobacco use, or should we say misuse started. In hookahs, chillums, cheroots, biris or mixed in paan. Consumption of Cannabis in India is recorded in the Atharvaveda, around 2000 BC. Biri, prior to 1605, contained clove and grated betel nut. Later, the British rulers got our forests cleared for planting Tobacco on a large scale. Curing of tobacco was also taught to the Indian farmers. Firewood was needed to produce Virginia, a kind of tobacco, so more forests were cut down. Many different varieties of tobacco have since been produced in India in its different regions. 

POSITIVE EFFECTS OF TOBACCO

1. Effects on Livelihood – Around 42 million workers (including women and children) of small towns and villages are involved in biri manufacturing. There are 6 million farmers growing tobacco. If we include the related workers of cigarette, paan masala, cheroots, cigars factories along with traders, paanwaris, paper, packaging transportation and export unit, the total number is around 450 million. 
2. Effects on Economy – As per Assocham, the tobacco industry has contributed a whopping Rs 11,79,498 crores to the Indian economy. On a yearly basis, Rs 6000 crores worth of tobacco and its products are exported to over 100 countries. Tobacco has cascading effects on the fertiliser, pesticide, mentha, paper and board, plastics and many other industries. 

NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF TOBACCO 

The negative effects of tobacco and its products are multifarious. It doesn’t just affect the user but also their family, pets, coworkers and friends. It also affects the entire environment of air, soil and water, including living beings. 

1. Effects on Human Health – The negative effects of Tobacco were well known for a long time but were denied by the Tobacco industry. Only when the causal relationship between smoking and lung cancer was established in the Supreme Court of the US, more and more research was brought to light. Tobacco has nicotine and 4000 other toxic chemicals, many carcinogenic. Cigarettes have ill effects of burning paper smoke too. There is no organ of the body which is not affected by Tobacco. A few important ill effects are listed. 
   • Cancers – Oral cancer due to tobacco chewing is causing more concern than lung cancer in India. Cancers of the head, neck, voice box, food pipe, stomach, pancreas, kidney and bladder are also more frequent in tobacco users. 
   • Lung Diseases – These are the earliest and most prominent. Smokers cough, chronic bronchitis, acute asthma, tuberculosis and COPD- chronic obstructive lung disease are a few of them. 
   • Circulatory System and Heart – Tobacco use causes blood vessels to narrow, restricting blood flow to critical organs. Clotting also increases due to rise in cholesterol. It results in heart attacks, brain strokes and painful legs ( Burgers disease) in long term usage. 
   • Immunity – Tobacco use reduces immunity, giving rise to frequent infections and auto-immune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease. Preliminary pandemic data reveals that smokers were more prone to get SARS COV 2, those affected frequently needed ventilators and had a higher risk of death. 
   • Type II Diabetes – Tobacco users have 30 to 40% higher chances of getting this disease 
   • Fertility. Men have more chances of having a low sperms count and long term users may get impotent. Overall, the fertility rate of couples who use tobacco is lower. 
   • Pregnant Women and Newborns – Women tobacco users or second-hand smoke inhalers are at high risk of abortions and premature labour. The newborns may be premature, have low birth weight or even have congenital defects. 
   • Eyes – Contraction of a field of vision and glaucoma may occur. 
   • Brain – Dementia and Alzheimers disease occur early and more frequently. 
   • Mouth – Apart from oral cancer, gum recession, caries and staining of teeth also occurs. 
   • Green Tobacco Sickness – A common disease of those who harvest, store and cure tobacco. It has multiple symptoms. 
   • Skin – Last, but not the least in my list is the early ageing of the skin resulting in wrinkles, especially on the face. 
2. Effects on Environment – These effects are caused by a multitude of ways tobacco is grown, processed, used and unused products discarded in air, soil and water. 

• Air Pollution. This occurs due to :
  1. Storage of tobacco leaves for ‘curing’. 
  2. Burning of firewood for the manufacture of ‘Virginia’ grade tobacco. 
  3. Sidestream smoke of freshly discarded cigarette butts, cigars, biris, cheroots or even left over tobacco of hookahs and pipes.
  4. Second-hand smoke.
  5. Green House gases released by factories manufacturing cigarettes, paan masalas or their packaging materials.
• Soil Pollution and degradation – 
  1. Garbage due to leftover container packets, butts, biri, cigar and cheroots contain toxic and carcinogenic materials. Stray cows, birds, dogs and cats who eat this garbage are also affected by toxic chemicals. 
  2. Plastic sachets of Paan masala remain as non-degradable waste. 
  3. Soil degradation due to the use of fertilisers, pesticides and special chemicals for growing tobacco. Over a period of time, this soil becomes unsuitable for growing tobacco and fresh land is sought. 
  4. Clearance of forests for growing tobacco or for firewood. 
• Water Pollution – A large amount of this toxic solid garbage ends up in water bodies in small pieces. Cellulose acetate found in the filters of cigarettes has been studied and found to kill a large number of smaller aquatic life. Smaller pieces resemble fish food and are ingested by fish, resulting in the death of fish in a period of time. Other chemicals also pollute the water bodies and their ill effects depend on the amount of tobacco wastes in that area.

BENEFITS VERSUS ILL EFFECTS

India is the second-largest producer of tobacco after China. It earns a precious US$1 Billion in foreign exchange each year. Biri production comes under the cottage industry and provides livelihood to millions in the hinterland. On the other hand, Tobacco kills 10 million Indians every year. But that’s not all, the number of Tobacco users who fall sick, suffer the loss of man-days and incur heavy treatment costs is around ten times this number. Huge amounts of money is also spent on controlling pollution. All these costs have been computed at US$ 27.5 Billion which is 1.4% of our GDP.

To conclude, I would rather raise two questions:

• Are we justified in producing tobacco and its products for killing so many Indians?
• Are we polluting our resources for earning a billion dollars every year? 

Apparently, we are still doing the white man’s dirty job in our country by growing Tobacco for export, a job we never did till they brought Tobacco to India, 400 years ago.

Maj Gen Krishan Chauhan is a second-generation army officer. He studied in Sainik School Kapurthala, graduated from IG Medical College, Shimla and did his MD from AFMC/Pune University. He has served in the Army Medical Corps for 36 years and retired as the Addl DGMS army. He is an avid marathon runner and a writer. He first wrote articles for children in The Young Chronicles. Later, he started writing his own blog as Genkris, on WordPress where over 25 articles on various subjects can be accessed.