It took nearly 15 minutes to write this story and as many minutes for tobacco to kill 30 people.

Tobacco kills one person in 32 seconds. The real time data records over 23,200 tobacco related deaths since April 1, 2015. At the same time, the tobacco companies across the globe made a profit of Rs 6,50,900 lakh. 

To check the real time data see here

This World Lung Advocacy's campaign called ‘Answer Sunita’ is dedicated to fight for the pictorial warning on tobacco products and is named on the woman who was the banner girl of tobacco campaign in India. Sunita succumbed to oral cancer on April 1 after battling with the disease for years. Only two days before her death, Sunita wrote to prime minister Narendra Modi and requested for sharp pictorial warnings.

The sole aim of the campaign is to raise awareness and send this message to the authorities to ponder again. It has asked social media users to reach out to PM Modi through Twitter, Facebook and other media with the message: “#AnswerSunita and put children’s health over tobacco industry profits. Pass 85% pack warnings now."

The Tobacco Atlas which monitors the real time data further estimates that nearly a quarter (23.2%) of adult males, 3.2% of adult females, 5.8% of boys and 2.4% of girls smoke tobacco. More than a quarter (25.9%) of adults use smokeless tobacco. In total, more than 2,542,000 children and more than 120,000,000 adults in India use tobacco each day. According to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey, 40% of Indians are exposed to secondhand smoke at home while 30% of Indians are exposed to secondhand smoke at workplace.

What is the need for a large graphic warning

·       Nearly 77% of Indian children surveyed could not recall seeing warning labels on tobacco packs.

·       98.4% of Indian children expressed a weak or no understanding of current health warnings on tobacco packs.

·       A study published in the Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention in 2011, based upon research conducted in India in 2009, found that Indian consumers felt that graphic warnings would be more effective if they were larger, in a more prominent position, and depicting more informative, visually impactful images of the real health harms of tobacco use.