A friend I met recently jokes about rising prices by saying “a single cigarette now costs 25 rupees”, and instinctively rolled one to smoke and even offered other friend too.

This single incidence alarms about rising addiction, acknowledges the inflation and showcases earliest forms of rising dependence of our society. Every year WORLD NO TOBACCO DAY is marked by a chain of events to show commitment towards avoiding smoking. Yet our society is slow in responding to the problem. 

Addiction to smoking begins as soon as any father asks his son to fetch a packet of cigarettes from the nearby shop, or pass hookah to his friend or puff some vapes at a social function or to look cool on social media pictures. For our youth in Kashmir the first exposure to addiction is not hard drugs or substance abuse, it’s the nicotine in the form of a cigarette that deepens his craving for further consumption. Smoking thus inadvertently forms the first psychological relationship with the substance abuse.

World No tobacco day this year........

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