Tobacco.org

Puff ban hole in cancer fight 

The ban on public smoking is likely to have only a limited impact in the country on tobacco-related cancers which are primarily driven by tobacco chewing, a senior oncologist has said.

Although smoking can cause cancers of the lung, larynx and oesophagus, cancer registry figures suggest oral cancer, which is associated with tobacco chewing, accounts for the majority of tobacco-related cancers in the country, said Pankaj Chaturvedi, a surgeon at Mumbai's Tata Memorial Hospital.

"About 60 to 70 per cent of India's estimated 250-million tobacco users chew tobacco," Chaturvedi said at a conference organised by the health ministry to devise strategies to address the problem of smokeless tobacco. "The ban on smoking deals with only about one-third of tobacco users."

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