India is home to 12% of the global population of smokers. That’s about 120 million smokers. Whoa! That’s a lot of smokers for a country.
According to a survey conducted by Edelweiss, 66% of smokers in India started smoking out of curiosity.
To understand them better, we ourselves wanted to find out firsthand exactly what made so many of our Indian brothers & sisters start smoking. Obviously, we didn’t ask every smoker out there about it, but from the ones we asked, their responses sure did help us understand why and how they started smoking:
1. “All of my cool friends were doing it”
2. “I wanted to try it just once, but I got hooked”
3. “At work, my stress levels were off the charts; smoking calmed my nerves”
4. “I used to drink, so thought why not try this too?”
5. “It helped me puff away my boredom”
6. “It made me look like a thinker”
7. “Had to take up smoking to fit in with my colleagues”
8. “My parents smoked a lot, so it wasn’t a big deal for me”
9. “I wanted to look cool, you know, just like the ones in movies”
10. “It helped me tackle my social awkwardness”
11. “When I smoked, I would stop worrying about my worries”
12. “I used to think it would help me lose my weight”
13. “It helped me be a little more creative every day”
Wow, interesting responses eh? It’s quite clear that sometimes people start smoking for very innocent or trivial reasons. What they don’t foresee is the extremely addictive nature of the practice, and the harm it does to their health. Let’s support our fellow peers who smoke, rather than judging them and shaming them, and let’s guide them to a smoking-free life.
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