ASIAN QUITLINE FACTSHEET

1 The Smoking epidemic

The British Medical Journal (BMJ 2000; 320: 397) reported that doctors should treat smoking and its nicotine addiction as a disease. Royal College of Physicians (Tobacco advisory Group RCP Feb 2000) noted that nicotine is as addictive as heroin and cocaine. 1

-Smoking is the single greatest cause of preventable disease and premature death. 120,000 people die each year in the UK through smoking related disease- this is 320 people every day 2

2. Smoking prevalence is very high in some Asian groups

In the general population, 27% of both men and women smoke:3

In Asian Men 44% of Bengali men, 26% of Pakistani men smoke and 23% of Indian men smoke 3

In Asian Women we have 6% of Indian Women, 5% of Pakistani women and 1% of Bengali women who smoke. 3

However, chewing tobaccos is very common in the Bengali community where 26% of Bengali women chew tobacco paan (betel leaf and areca nut) and 19% men chew paan, Gutka and other variations of tobacco 3