India: a Smoke-free Subcontinent

A few days ago India has become the latest country to ban smoking. However, the Indians have met the smoking ban with dejection saying that now they cannot socialize as easily at work and that coming and going to smoke takes a long time. One man said smoking took him 5 minutes now it takes him up to 20 minutes when trying to find access to smoke at work. But the authorities hope that people will turn their annoyance at not being able to smoke into an effort to stop the habit completely. According to the BBC ‘smoking kills 900,000 people in India every year, 2,500 people in a day and 102 people every hour…40% of all cancer cases in India are due to smoking’ so it is obviously in their interest to ban smoking in public places.

It is said that people smoke less when they are unable to smoke in the workplace or anywhere else. This fact in my opinion is true. In the UK 400,000 people have quit smoking within the year of the ban being introduced and I myself have stopped smoking completely this year (despite there being no ban in Cyprus). Although, we are still permitted to smoke outdoors while at work (as there is no Cypriot legislation against it) my flippant smoking habit stopped on the 8th July 2008 and on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, it would be three months since I’ve stopped smoking. So I am behind the ban.

In India, the fear is that people will now smoke more at home and that people will now chew tobacco instead of smoke it. The anti-smokers say that this legislation is overdue and are please it has become law, however they worry about it being implemented. With a country of over one billion it will be difficult to do so – especially as India has more pressing issues, such as poverty, healthcare and corruption. Still the ban on smoking won’t do any harm.

Greek law states that smoking is forbidden in all public and private workplaces and all areas related to health care and education and public transport; but in typical Greek fashion the law provides a loophole which makes it voluntary. A stricter smoking ban is said to be passed in 2010. If that happens, I assume Cyprus will follow. Until now Cyprus has practically zero legislation against smoking.