Say no to tobacco

KOCHI: In the new academic year the State Government plans to initiate a host of anti-tobacco drives for school students. As the number of children  falling victims to the addictive products are increasing, the drive's main aim is to prevent and provide awareness about the ill-effects of tobacco use.For the effective implementation of the  Control of Tobacco Products Act (COTPA), the district administration has plans to start a school level anti-tobacco squad in every school by June. “We hope to start the squads in all the schools by June of this year. The preliminary work has already started. The members of the squad including school students and teachers will keep a vigil on the use of tobacco products and will inform the incident to Tobacco Control Wing of the district administration. The students will also be given training on tobacco control. Students will be an important part in all the tobacco control drives from now onwards,” said the District Collector P I Sheikh Pareeth.As part of the project, a district level committee headed by the collector, with the revenue department, the police department, the excise department and the health department will be formed. The committee would take steps to ensure that no tobacco products are sold within 100 metres of the school premises.Meanwhile as part of its National Programme for Prevention & Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Stroke (NPCDCS) for lifestyle disease being launched across the state this year, the health department will also be looking at awareness programmes for children through the concerned Primary Health Centres (PHC) and Sub-centres. “The drive will begin when the school reopens. The month of June will be declared Anti-tobacco month. There will be regular raids in schools to check the selling of tobacco products to children. Each school will fall under a particular primary health centre or a sub-centre,” said the joint secretary of the Kerala Health Services, A S Pradeep.A highlight of the programme is the anti-tobacco pledge. This pledge will be made available to all schools through the concerned PHC or sub-centres. Students will then be made to take an oath in school against the use of tobacco. “The aim is for both internal and external prevention. The internal prevention is through awareness drives while the external is through the raids and taking steps to ensure that the product is not available for them. Apart from cigarettes, non-smoking tobacco like pan is on an increase among students. This will also be a special focus,” he added.While awareness programmes like this is a step in the right direction, some feel that comprehensive prevention should go beyond awareness. “Awareness is a vital part of the programme. But most of the time our anti-tobacco drives stop with just few sessions and poster campaigns. These drives must also look at the environmental factors the children are involved. Environmental factors including peer pressure, family problems, emotional problems and so on are often factors that make a child to look for some tension easing product which becomes addictive,” said psychiatrist Dr C J John.