Health groups welcome the proposal of increasing tax on tobacco

'All tobacco products in India are under-taxed,' said Bhavna Mukhopadhyay of the Voluntary Health Association of India (VHAI), welcoming the proposal of health ministry on increasing taxes on all tobacco products.

Health Minister Harsh Vardhan recently wrote to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley proposing an increase in tax on the retail price of cigarettes from 45 percent to 60 percent in the union budget. The proposal is to be presented in the parliament on July 10. (Read: Will hiking taxes in SouthEast Asia cut smoking?)

She said that increasing taxes means increase in revenue, reduction in consumption and saving of lives. It will also reduce the state's burden of treatment cost. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has recommended that the share of excise tax for tobacco products should be increased to 70 percent of the retail price. 'A tax increase that raises prices of tobacco products by 10 percent is estimated to reduce tobacco consumption by 4-5 percent. Essentially, as tax goes up, death and disease goes down. It is good for people's health and good for the economy,' said Nata Menabde, WHO representative to India. She said that raising taxes was one of the strongest weapons to fight tobacco and this was what the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control mandates. (Read: Can higher tobacco taxes curb consumption?)

According to a combined study by the health ministry and WHO, it is estimated that the total economic costs attributable to tobacco use from all diseases in India in the year 2011 amounted to a staggering Rs.1,04,500 crore - 12 percent more than the combined state and central government expenditure on health care in the same year. Pankaj Chaturvedi, head and neck surgeon at the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, says tobacco is the 'cheapest poison in the market that getting cheaper every year'. 'Tobacco taxes in India are not regularly adjusted for inflation, and over time tobacco products are becoming increasingly affordable, leading to one million deaths annually in India due to tobacco related diseases.' According to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey India (GATS) 2010, more than one-third (35 percent) of adults in India use tobacco in some form or the other. (Read: 'Hike taxes on tobacco products to reduce intake')

What happen inside your body when you smoke?

Stressed out, bored or simply craving that nicotine fix smoking is usually a solution to all of these problems. But did you know that in order to beat that boredom you are slipping down the unending crevasse of death. How you ask? Here is what smoking does to your health and eventually causes cancer, right from when you light up to when you exhale.

Your first drag:

1. Whether you light your cigarette using a matchstick or a lighter, the first puff is the most damaging. The smoke emitted from the match and the cigarette form a strong cocktail that can leave the mucous lining in your nose damaged.

2. Apart from that the heat from the cigarette affects the skin on your face and most importantly around your nose and mouth. The heat causes your lips to darken, leads to wrinkles and the appearance of age spots. Another reason for darkening of a smokers lips is the fact that the tar in the cigarette tends to adhere to the lips, soon staining them.

3. Not to mention the constant pouting and sucking that one has to do in order to take a puff also leads to what is known as a smoker's pout. Where when you pout you will see the appearance of fine lines around the lips something that does not happen in non-smokers.

Read more about the 6 most common myths about smoking busted.

What the smoke does to the insides of your mouth:

4. When the smoke is inside your mouth, the tar starts to coat the enamel of your teeth, discolouring them.

5. The heat from the smoke also damages the cells in and around your mouth, and in some cases leading to a change in their DNA causing mutations. Once inside the mouth the tar and other chemicals affect all parts of your oral cavity.

6. The chemicals present in a cigarette are numerous and they form a coat your tongue, palate and the inside of your cheeks. It deadens your taste buds, hyperactivates your salivary glands and eventually blocks them, leading to a lack of saliva in your mouth. That is also one of the reasons smokers need a drink of water after a smoke. Read more about 25 things that happen inside your body when you smoke

With inputs from IANS

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