Srinagar, May 31 -- Health officials report that over 20 percent of J&K's population uses tobacco in some form. Smoking tobacco has a prevalence rate of 20.8%, placing the region behind only Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Meghalaya, and Mizoram. However, the use of smokeless tobacco in J&K remains relatively low at 4.3%, the second lowest in India after Himachal Pradesh.
According to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS 2), 35.2% of men and 5.1% of women in J&K smoke tobacco, resulting in an overall adult smoking prevalence of 20.8%. Smokeless tobacco use stands at 6.8% among men and 1.5% among women, accounting for 4.3% of all adults. In total, 39.7% of men and 6.2% of women-about 23.7% of the adult population-consume tobacco in ei...