Dhaka, May 27 Sofura Begum came to know about the harmful effect of chewing tobacco only when doctors detected cancer in her mouth. The 60-year old from southeastern Comilla chewed tobacco, a common habit among rural Bangladeshi women, for long.
Doctors removed part of her jaw. "It's difficult to take food now," she gags as the cancer prevents her from opening the mouth and maneuvering the tongue properly.
A farmer in his 60s, Sheikh Nazrul Islam is also battling against laryngeal (voice box) cancer. The poor farmer said he used to take hand-roll bidis and zarda for over 40 years.
United Forum Against Tobacco (UFAT), a common platform of doctors' professional bodies, brought them to a discussion to show tobacco harms to policy makers on Sunday when the 2012-13 budget session begins.
UFAT demands an increase in taxes on all tobacco products as there is an inverse relationship between tobacco product prices and consumption; falling prices lead to increases in consumption while rising prices will reduce the habit.
Cancer specialist of Dhaka Medical College Hospital Dr Golam Mohiuddin Faruk said in 2011 alone they got at least 6,000 cancer patients, of whom 30 percent had oral cavity cancer.
He termed it 'alarming' as they believed 90 percent of the cases had to with consuming tobacco.
Ranked 20th among the tobacco-producing nations in the world, the prices of tobacco in Bangladesh are said to be the cheapest.
The supplementary duties on cigarettes vary from 36 percent to 60 in four tiers. It is only 20 percent for bidis while 30 percent for smokeless tobacco like zarda and gul.
Economists say if specific tax of Tk 34 per 10 cigarettes, Tk 4.95 per pack of 25 bidis were levied ending existing price slabs, the government would earn Tk 22.2 billion more in revenue from those products even though 10.4 million people will have quit the habit.
Thousands of lives would be saved in Bangladesh where more than 150 people are estimated to be dying every day due to tobacco-related illness.
As industry proponents argue generating millions employment in tobacco factories, a recent study showed only around 65,000, far below the claim of 'millions of workers', work in 117 bidi factories in Bangladesh where the real prices of tobacco have fallen, shooting the number of consumers.
"We have placed the demand of increasing taxes and amending the 2005 Tobacco Control Act at the soonest to the President and Health Minister," UFAT Organising Secretary Dr Sohel Reza Chowdhury said. President Mohammed Zillur Rahman is the chief patron of the platform.
National Professor Abdul Malik said the government believed it earned huge revenue from tobacco industries, but in reality, it had to spend more on the tobacco-induced incurable diseases.
"We have to stop tobacco cultivation. Its inhumane if we even think of exporting tobacco (products) for revenue generation."
The draft tobacco control law has incorporated smokeless tobacco such as zarda, sada pata and gul as tobacco products and suggested pictorial health warnings covering 50 percent of a tobacco packet to discourage smokers.
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