I agree with the article.

The notion that the smoking ban should not be implemented because it can not impact every single villager out there is absurd. Obviously it will not eradicate smoking, but it is a start, it will have an impact, and it will help generate awareness

I am a smoker (who has greatly reduced his smoking and is on the verge of quitting) and I believe that the ban will have a positive impact on the health of both smokers and non smokers. I know from experience that a smoking ban results in few cigarettes consumed simply due to the fact that it is more inconvenient to do so.

Please also note that this smoking ban is far from being as radical as those imposed in New York and other cities. Many restaurants/bars will be able to comply with the smoking zone law.

Dknapp10 stated:
"Actually chewing tobacco is worse than smoking."

Chewing tobacco may be worse for the individual doing it, but it doesn't take anyone else with him, Hence, in my view, chewing tobacco is far "better." As long as yours is the only body to count, chew away.

Often, there is a disconnect between smokers' defense of their smoking and the obvious effects their smoking has on others in the same room. Hence the argument that "chewing is worse." It shows an almost egomaniacal disregard of others.

Advocates for smoking in public places share one thing in common: they don't care about others. Smoking is more important to them than the people sitting in the next restaurant booth, whether those be babies, kids, adults or the elderly. Smoking advocates will cite to customs, tradition, prevalence of other forms of smoke... all to protect smokers' "rights" to blow in a child's face. Their deranged advocacy is often as toxic as the second-hand smoke they generate. Smoking advocates are numb to their own callousness and have strayed so far from reason that they invite governmental imposition of common sense.

I personally do not enjoy it when the government has to regulate behavior, but unfortunately, it is necessary sometimes, as criminal laws around the world attest. People who smoke in public places are guilty of morbid and reckless stupidity. So yes, government should step in.

So smokers: go ahead and talk all you want about your "rights" to publicly inflict your smoke on others. You'll run out of breath before we do.

Cancer is pretty ugly no matter how you look at it. Lung cancer suffocates the person and causes slow starvation in the cases I have seen. Mouth cancer usually end in disfigurement, loss of tongue and that can be brought on by smoking and drinking alcohol as well as chewing. Drinking and smoking act as multiplers for mouth cancer. Done in isolation mouth cancer is rare but combined the chance is significantly higher depending upon the severity of addiction.

Nicotine is more addictive than heroin so lets not be too harsh on our addicted friends/relatives.

Laws that get smokers to take their habit outside should be encouraged and good parenting provides that mothers quit during pregnacy and neither parent smoke inside an unvented area when the children are present.

Well, any anti-smoking effort is to be praised. Besides many benefits cited by others in banning smoking in public places, it is a good practice in trial and error. Convincing people to quit smoking and making non-smokers aware of the hazards of second-hand smoking is something that will be observed gradually. Persistent and smart anti-smoking campaign should do miracles. India has many urban centers and people in these areas are educated to grasp the message of anti-smoking efforts. As for the rural, it is hard to reach them for sure, not just in convincing them to quit smoking also with many other health, social and economic programs.

'Elitist"? No.

Protection for my second-hand blackened lungs is not 'elitist'.

You've completely missed the point of this law. It is not about preventing people from smoking, it is about keeping second hand smoke away from non-smokers. Just as this law has improved business in bars, restaurants and other places where smoking is prohibited, so can it have that effect in India, not to mention the fact that it is better for the health of non-smokers. Shame on you for castigating a man who has pushed through legislation for the betterment of the health of millions.

Laws in India will not work because the Media does not take the trouble of educating the public about such laws and invoking a conscience in them to obey the law and become responsible citizens. Using their ability to reach the masses, they can show how the citizens in the Western countries abide by the law. Indian Media,India's pseudo-intellectuals and elitists are the ones that are the dragging down the country, not the illiterate rural dwellers. If the 'educated and enlightened' provide good leadership, they will gladly follow.

Smoking is a personal choice that one should make based on full information regarding the risk. Thus, invest in education, not bans. We're always putting ourselves in danger in life, but let individuals make those choices. The state should only intervene when our individual choices put other people at risk.

Additionally, if anybody investigates further, there actually is no conclusive evidence that secondhand smoke increases cancer risks. I thought people saying that were crazy; then I looked it up. Read the actual studies, not what people say about them.

Cigarettes are a known health hazard. They are connected to cancer, lung and heart disease. They cause emphysema. And so on.

The 'cure' is to educate kids from age 5 and up with repeated and increasing detail over the danger and addiction of smoking.

That they are still in such great demand and universally available, is testament to our failure as a society to stamp them out. Some say, they bring in so much tax revenue that governments don't want to do anything real about them. This is hogwash. The money saved in medical terms (at least in developed countries with social medicine) would outweigh the tax loss.

Much of the argument Mr. Gupta offers against the ban, has been offered here in the US too. Over the years, more and more public and even private accommodations have been going smokeless. Even the ultimate smokers' havens, the casinos in Atlantic City have gone smokeless, prmitiing it in selected places. Even the powerful lobby of tobacco farmers relented, albeit slowly.

Higher taxation may seem to be the answer, but it is not. It only encourages illegal behaviour, in devising ways of evading the tax. Education and awareness are the keys, and they will take a while to take root.

Three years ago I was travelling on a train in India. A gentleman across the seat started to smoke, and I told him that smoking is not permitted in the train. He went to the door of th etrain, opened it and smoked there and returned, and told me that he saw no sign anywhere banning smoking.

We started to talk, and he let it out that he is not allowed to smoke in his house, and goes out to do so. I asked him if his wife objected to his smoking. No, he said, it is his children that object.

I hope the next generation in India would see the light and stop smoking.

Elitist?

What is more elitist than editorial opinion? And what is more widely ignored?

I disagree, I think it will work over time and begin the national discussion on the rights to smoke and not to smoke.

Smoking is bad. But to move a society as large and as complex as India's to a goal of 15% smokers or less, you need to think of the goal as a million tiny efforts.

This ban being just one of them. So in another 10-15 years hopefully we'll see that most 18 yo males and females will have never tried a smoke. I like those odds.

2) Chewing tobacco is considerably more healthy than smoking it, and anything that shifts from smoking to chewing is a good thing.
----------------------------
Actually chewing tobacco is worse than smoking. It eats your mouth, tongue and throat with the concentration of tobacco jusice carcinogens. I used to work in head and neck cancer, and I would much rather have a cancer from smoking than from chewing if I had to have a cancer.

Shekhar:

Finally. I enjoy reading your work on IE. Keep it up good work

elitist? this ban does not hurt the rich, it harms them. I cannot tell you how many stupid college kids I see smoking themselves into a stinky stupor all over Bangalore. These are not poor village kids or people who would smoke bidis, these are solidly middle class and above kids who can pay for Marlboros and smoke like fiends anywhere they can... and they are forcefully rude about it as well. try entering a coffee day without having to gag for fresh air.

.

Methinks the lady doth protest too much (if you know what I mean).

Wink, wink.

What I posted earlier was my comment on article,but now I want to reply some of the people who have supported Mr.Gupta and have gone even beyond that. They are talking improvement of conditions of hospitals of India,but in my opinion none of them has visited cancer hospitals or cancer ward of any hospital in India, otherwise they would have seen the horrible posture of those who are suffering from different types of cancers born out of smoking and chewing tobacco.Tell me what should be priority , to build more hospitals or to prevent people from falling ill?In my opinion both are equally important. Pollutions from vehicles and other sources are being tackled and it has started bearing fruit.Now, if Ramdoss is trying preventive measures,he is justifying himself as doctor as well as health minister

Ramdoss might have erred in case of Venugopal,otherwise that man is simply crusador.He is just following the path of Mahatma Gandhi who had once said that, if I get the reign of India even for half a day,my first job will be total prohibition.
At the time of freedom struggle before independence of India, congress volunteers under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi used to squat in front of wine shops to stop people from purchasing and drinking.India would have been a better place to live if Government would have followed Gandhi's directive.As a doctor Ramdoss knows the harmful effect of Tobacco and wine.He is totally correct in asking ban for smoking in public.Even if somebody is not caring for his health, what right he has got to spoil others'health due to passive smoking? Ban on bidis are same as ban on cigarettes,because it is ban on smoking. If politics and tobacco lobby do not allow printing unhealthy pictures on bdi's pack,it is not something for which people should rejoice. It is simply unfotunate. Even if Ramdoss fails as has been predicted by Mr.Gupta,there will be only regret that a good man has been cowed down by rampant evil forces.

reader20-"To suggest that taxation on cigarettes will induce people to buy less is laughable. Any kid who has taken one undergraduate course in economics will tell you that. Demand for tobacco is inelastic, therefore all taxation will do is get some revenue for the government while distorting surplus for both consumers and producers, and leaving demand untouched."

Studies have been done on this. Smoking does decrease when prices increase, in particular, fewer young people take up the practice and become addicted. No doubt demand becomes more inelastic among addicted smokers, but even among this group, people do quit, and a major motivating factor in their quitting is all the money they are burning up buying cigarettes.

I agree with Shekahar Gupta. I too was once a smoker but thank god I kicked the habit. BUT this rule brought in by a '#@$%^@@" minister who only had the luck ot get elected and indulge in needless grandstanding is stupid.

Anyone who has any experience of India would see that this law is unworkable, unenforceable and guarateed to demonstarte to the average citizen that the law is there to be disobeyed. This smoking ban is Elitist and is going to inconvenience very few people and is likely to be struck down either by the people or the next parliment.

There are far more serious issues with more health implications that should have been addressed by the Health Minister such basic hygeine, public hygeine and the poor functioning and corrupt practises of the few public hospitals where 70% of India's poor go to. This law instead is just grandstanding.

Most smokers I know have already started flouting this ban for the simple reason that it is stupid and inconvenient and impossible to enforce. And most people who should enforce this ban could not be bothered as they have far mote serious things to do (like maintain public law ans order and try to solve crimes) than object to someone minidng his business and enjoying a quiet smoke.

As for second hand smoke - well anyone who has seen the pollution in Indian cities would be well advised to press for a total ban on Cars and vehicular traffic which pump out more carbon emissions, per day than all the smokers in the world would emit in a year.

Why such laws do not succeed in India is, for the most part, non-existent law enforcement. With the police department being one of the most corrupt departments, there is no way such laws will be enforced. Take for example - traffic. When police are not present, people don't even bother to follow them. When police are present, people bribe the policeman (or pay not so high penalty) and get away with it. Also many commercial drivers, like auto-rikshaws, pay monthly bribes to the police department for "not bothering" them in their daily business. Everyone knows about this in India.

India has many laws on the book - but they typically remain on the books. The enforcement is spotty and depends on the whim of the officials. So in that regard ban on smoking, though important, is the lowest law-enforcement priority.

The author seems confused beyond comprehension.
Banning smoking is "elitist" because bidis can't be banned! As any moderately awake person knows, the problem with smoking is second-hand smoke. This law is long overdue. It will save an untold number of lives and healthcare costs that a poor nation like India can ill afford.

Mr. Gupta's argument rings quite shallow, indeed. To call a smoking bean "elitist" is terrible! It does seem that Mr. Gupta has an issue with the Health Minister of India! If so, let us not inject personal feelings into a deservedly great cause such as banning smoking.

The tobacco industry will be delighted to support Mr. Gupta, but India needed to do something really drastic if it wants to keep its people, especially the youth, more healthy. There has been a drammatic surge in tobacco commercials throughout the country in the recent past. India needs to do more and not less in this area: ban smoking beedies, hookahs and anything connected with tobacco.

The Indian Health Minister is surely onto something, I bet! If it were not so, the Indian Parliament wouldn't have passed the law. Mr. Gupta must surely revise his view of "elistism," I guess. Hopefully, many more contries will consider such anti-smoking legislation.

In India, lawmakers are being paid millions of dollars to vote against their people's health in favor of NUCLEAR COMPANIES. Millions of dollars spent by nuclear companies buying INDIVIDUAL lawmakers to vote in the interest of these corporations, pollutant and health devastating corporations.

How can anyone believe that these anti-smoking laws have anything to do with a desire of the lawmakers to protect their people?

The hypocrisy of these people is just overwhelming.

So let's hear from the minority - smokers. I am a heavy smoker, and here is what I think about it.

1. Smoking, obviously, is stupid, stupid, stupid. Tax the living hell out of it. A stupidity tax is always in order. I will pay it without complaint.

2. By all means ban smoking in the workplace, restaurants, and public buildings. This is only common courtesy. But leave most outdoors areas alone, as well as most bars.

3. Never try to outlaw smoking completely. That is prohibition all over again, and many of us have read or heard what a disaster that was.

4. The view of smoking being a great health cost is slightly misleading. All it does is hasten death, so over a period of decades the cost evens out. Death is usually expensive, regardless of the cause. The real cost is people dying in their prime, and leaving the work force.

Anyway, those are the opinions of this stupid old man.

Making a law that will inheritly be defeated by the public at large is an ineffectual law and defeats the purpose of having a law in the first place. What you have done is establish a "speak easy" liquor law as Americans realized in the 1920's. Don't attempt to legislate morality, religion nor personal choice. Every attempt to do so ultimely leads to utter defeat. Smokers will continue to smoke and probably blow smoke in your face! It is a choice... a personal choice. Legislate where they may smoke but not a ban. Make it so.

1) Fewer people start smoking if cigarettes are more expensive. Also, many smokers have some control over how much they smoke, although their level of control may vary. These people will smoke less if prices are higher. The author is correct on this point.

2) Chewing tobacco is considerably more healthy than smoking it, and anything that shifts from smoking to chewing is a good thing.

3) Smoking in public places is dangerous (especially in enclosed areas) both to the smoker and to others in the area. Waiters and bartenders suffer a documented risk of mortality and morbidity from passive smoking.

4) The author readily dismisses legislation, apparently because he does not respect the legislator. Who authored the law is not material to whether the idea is beneficial. What matters is that, even if enforcement coverage of the law is incomplete, it will safe lives.

From time to time, I look at these forums and it is not much of a surprise that about once a month or so, there is some really asinine comment by some fool or other. Here is yet another.

"What would work much better is higher taxation, education and awareness. This Indian law is just the fancy of one minister who takes himself too seriously and certainly not something governments around the world should be emulating."

Oh really? Well, I'll tell you a story ... when I came to Cambridge, Mass. in 1968, cigarettes were 35 cents a pack (20 in a pack) and that wasn't the lowest price. Today, they cost about $7 a pack. And people still smoke.

I gave up smoking cigarets in 1981 (1982 if you include the few cheating moments).

The bottom line is that the best kind of "education" is that which brings home the stark reality that there is something really, really wrong about letting the tobacco companies exploit the health of human beings for profit.

If there is an Indian politician with the guts to try this sort of thing, let's not call it elitist or lament that it doesn't go far enough, but look to the day when no one smokes a cigaret anywhere in the world.

This a pernicious, addictive disease that is exploited by some for profit. Mr. Gupta, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for writing pure nonsense from a position of total ignorance.

This ban, like most laws in India, will be seen as a joke and followed by nobody. Unless, of course, you're a white tourist and the police threaten to enforce it so you have to bribe them.

To suggest that taxation on cigarettes will induce people to buy less is laughable. Any kid who has taken one undergraduate course in economics will tell you that. Demand for tobacco is inelastic, therefore all taxation will do is get some revenue for the government while distorting surplus for both consumers and producers, and leaving demand untouched.
Journalism in India is mediocre at best, and pathetic at worst.. and this article is a good indicator why. Thoughtless, not researched, bad sentence construction and pedestrian arguments. Mr. Gupta, if you want to impress a discerning audience, you will need to come up with better talking points than this.

One has to start some place. We can atleast ban
smoking, alcohol, dance bars, paan near schools, colleges, hospitals, police stations, railway platforms., places of worship, markets, public places, tourist spots, office buildings, bus stations. We need to also add clean toilets, clean waters in all of these areas. This is simply encouraging healthy life styles. Pranayam and simple yoga exercises and good drinking water can help children avoid unhealthy life style.
Why not ban Pepsi, McDonalds and Pizza Huts which impacts childen health. We can provide healthy choices through education in schools, colleges, and at Gram Panchayat level. People need to make informed choice. I appluad Ramdoss effort and appreciate his guts to stand out among many politicans who have amassed wealth by taking bribes from companies with total disragard for the health of our nation.

Shekhr Gupta is right that higher taxes, especially on bidis which is 80% of the smoked tobacco in India, and pictorial warning labels would be most effective at reaching the poor and uneducated.

Still, clean air laws work not only because they protect non-smokers, but because they help current smokers to quit. And currently, only 2% of India's adults are ex-smokers (in contrast to 9% in China and well over 40% in the UK or the US). Without quitting, India can forget making any real gains in reducing smoking deaths in our lifetime. Ramadoss is right to try to get clean air laws, and the reality is that these can only start in the urban areas.

And what a total that is- 1 million deaths a year in the 2010s- more than twice the US total smoking deaths and about the same as China's totals. Half of India's smoking deaths occur among the illiterate.

India and China compete on many things, but surely neither wants to win the gold medal for most smoking deaths!

Mr Gupta: I'm sorry you've let your dislike of the health minister (of whom I know nothing) lead you to dismiss a very good idea as "elitist". The death and suffering that tobacco addiction imposes (millions of deaths worldwide anually) is only surpassed by the passiveness with which governments and individuals accept it. Of course the enforcement of the law will be imperfect, but the mere fact of the government taking a stand that tobacco use is deadly, and thus not acceptable, will make a huge difference, not least of which is children's perception of tobacco use. Put your disagreements with the health minister aside and do the right thing and support the ban, imperfect and idealistic as it may be. I say this as someone who lives between two cities, one of which has a smoking ban and one that does not. Such laws really do work, as much by the public attitudes they inculcate as by the enforcement or lack thereof. Also, the posting above that points out the "product placement" and romanticization of tobacco use in movies is a strategy that the tobacco industry has used worldwide as long as there have been movies. It has a great effect, especially on youth, insecure and searching, and your flip dismissal of public attempts to moderate that form of unconscious propagandization is something I would also urge you to rethink. Thank you.

India, I love you!!!!! Well done, ol' chum!!!

Smoke of all kinds fumigates life in India. Incense is burned by street vendors and people who worship all manner of shrines and gods. Men smoke in public all over the nation. Those bidis can be ordered from vendors that will mix a variety of ingredients, some of which are illegal but tolerated when mixed with tobacco, cloves, and who knows what else. In poorer parts of the country dung is still burned. Diesel fumes permeate many cities though no longer New Delhi. Garbage piles burn all around most major population centers. It is about time one Indian leader rails against this nauseous stench from coast to coast. I suspect the rates of lung cancer and other respiratory diseases reflect the poor air quality. India can ill afford the increased health care costs.

Elitist?! This formerly meaningful word has become so diluted through misuse many confuse it with elite, which Mr. Gupta, to his credit, hasn't done, but still, from what he describes the ban is merely ineffective and ill=conceived. Can someone explain to me why it's "elitist"?

I'm seriously trying to understand Mr. Gupta's full argument, because in theory a ban seems like a good idea.

We bans other drugs for being habit-forming and/or detrimental to health, drugs that unlike cigarettes at least have value to the very ill.

What ought to be banned is the growing of tobacco, a real waste of tillable land in a hungry world.

Taxes on tobacco products have been raised several times in India, without seriously affecting tobacco demand. Surprise, surprise: since tobacco is addictive its demand is inealstic. The route Mr. Gupta wants India to take would simply use tobacco taxation as a revenue earning source for the government.
Introducing a ban may not work - but it has not been tried for very long and any blanket conclusion about this policy is premature. And what is so elitist about using every possible means to reduce tobacco related deaths and health costs? This policy can work in the West, but Gupta argues that it will not work in India. Why? Surely this is an elitist argument if ever I saw one.

Apparently Mr. Gupta doesn't object the policy goal of the ban on smoking, so instead of making dismissive comment on a worthy cause of public health, a journalist like Mr. Gupta could use his energy in direct help. For example, investigating and exploring the financial connection between the tobacco industry and the entertainment industry. After all, making a movie hero a cool chain smoker is the best promotion.

I'm curious what the current tax on cigarettes / tobacco is in India and how that compares to average US taxes (which I know vary greatly from state to state).

Is tobacco production for "bidi's" subsidized in any way, and if so, would shifting subsidies to other crops be an effective way of reducing supply and thus increasing price (and reducing demand). Also, would shifting subsidies to other crops encourage members of the tobacco lobby to shift their power to this other commodities?