Teenagers start smoking because of advertisements .

In a news item published in the daily , The Times of India , it is said that surrogate tobacco ad are now luring Indian youth - 10 to 14 years - to take up smoking . As reported in the daily that a recent Indo - US study conducted in Delhi and Tamilnadu which included 11,642 sixth and eighth graders , found that nearly
50 % of the kids had seen and remebered a tobacco advertisement . Over 490 of the students surveyed from 32 schools had a fovourite tobacco ad . While 238 of them could recall a brand name . Current use of tobacco was five times lower among the students who had not watched tobacco promotions .
According to the study , published in the month of May issue of the
' American Journal of Health Behaviour ' , shows a clear connection between exposure to surrogate tobacco ads and consumption . Cigarette companies are now trying to tap the younger population by falsely associating use of tobacco products with qualities such as glamour , energy and sex appeal . The finding has serious implications for India , 51 % of whose population is below the age of 25 .
Times of Idia have quoted one of the researcher e.i. Monica Arora , director of Hriday that event sponsorship and life style stores named after tobacco products were slipping through the cracks of the law in India which banned tobacco ads in 2004 .
Fatal Puff .
. Tobacco kills a third or half of those who use it globally .
. India is home to nearly 12 crore smokers .
. Smoking kills 1 lakh females and 6 lakh males a year between the ages of 30 - 69
in India .
. Smoking is expected to kill 10 lakh people in India , annualy from 2010 .
. It will be the primery cause behind one in five of all male deaths and one in
twenty of all female deaths in India .
. Nearly 70 % of these one million deaths - seven lakh people will die young .
. Over 50 % of the tobacco deaths will occur in illiterate men or women , with
80 % of them residing in rural India .
. On an average , every tobacco user loses 15 years .
. In India only 2 % of the adults quit smoking .
. Bidi is the most popular form of smoking tobacco in India .
. 70 % of the tobacco smoked is in the form of bidis .
. For every cigarette , 8 bidis are sold .
. Nearly 85 % of the world's bidi tobacco is grown in India .
. 22 % of adults world wide currently smoke tobacco .
. 36 % men smoke compared to 8 % women globally .
. About 61 % of men who smoke will die at ages 30 - 69 , compared with 41 % of
otherwise similar non smokers .