[DrBrightonone]

Nearly 40 per cent of children in the city are exposed to passive smoking which makes them vulnerable to cancer as they inhale the toxic smoke at home from their fathers, says a survey conducted by Adyar Cancer Institute (ACI). It reveals that the small tobacco shops close to their schools and bus stops will affect the children in the long run.

Explaining the study, Dr Vidhubala of the resource centre for tobacco control in ACI said, “We should understand that there is no safe-level usage of tobacco. There is a wrong notion that smoking less number of times will do no harm.

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The fact is that when the body becomes incapable of metabolising the toxic substance, even passive smokers have an equal chance of getting cancer.” Smoking not only kills those who smoke, but also the innocents who are around him, says Dr Arvind Krishnamurthy, surgical oncologist at ACI. “People should understand that roads are not the place for smoking. They need to understand that they are indirectly causing slow death to people around them,” he warned.

Though the anti-tobacco law has stringent measures, the city corporation and state tobacco cell (STC) officials fail to implement them, reveals an RTI petition by Deccan Chronicle. According to the corporation officials, they have booked just 1,140 persons for smoking in public places since the implementation of the anti-tobacco law 2008.

The reasons given by the officials for this sound lame.

“We do not have enough fining booklets.The STC did not provide the booklets to us,” they complain.

But STC blames the city health officials for not coming forward to implement the Act.

“They have not performed from early 2011,” says a senior officer of the cell. The officer said fining booklets would have been supplied if they had received requests.

The corporation and STC have collected just `26,54,960 as fine from people found smoking in public since 2008.

STC state consultant Prasanna Kannan said, “When we can book so many people for violation, why can’t the corporation perform well? They don’t have the will to do it. We can completely stop this menace if the corporation wakes up.” But corporation commissioner D. Karthikeyan said his men were doing their best.

When asked about very few people being fined, he said, “The law is in force and the corporation will enforce it strictly. I will speak to my health officers’ team.”

Source: Deccan Chronicle