 "Mizoram tops tobacco consumption in India: Official")
The northeastern state of Mizoram leads India in tobacco consumption with 67.2 % of its population consuming/smoking various tobacco products, an official said here on Tuesday.
"A record 67.2 % of Mizoram's around 11 lakh population uses various types of tobacco products," Mizoram State Tobacco Control Society (MSTCS) nodal officer Jane R Ralte told reporters here.
"The total percentage of male tobacco users in Mizoram is 73.6 % against a national average of 32.1 %," she said quoting a recent official survey. The percentage of female tobacco users is 16.1 %.
The official said about 62 % non-smokers in Mizoram were exposed to passive smoking.
Ralte said Mizoram also registered the highest percentage of cancer patients in India, with a record 5,888 people currently suffering from the deadly disease. As many as 3,137 people had died of cancer in five years, she said.
Since 2009, the Mizoram government has been implementing an anti-tobacco programme in the state.
"No smoking is allowed in public or in open places or in front of non-smokers. Smoking has been banned in government offices, educational institutions, health centres and crowded places across Mizoram," an official release quoted Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla as saying in a meeting.
The Chief minister's wife Lal Riliani, a social activist and president of the Mizoram chapter of the Indian Society of Tobacco Health, said that more than 50 % cancer cases among the Mizos were caused by tobacco.
Mizos - men, women and children - are traditionally heavy smokers of different types of tobacco.
