31st May of every year is dedicated to NO TOBACCO DAY all over the world by WHO.

There are many days earmarked for threatening diseases by WHO and this is also one of them.

Psychiatrists focus their attention on World Mental Health Day, World Suicide Prevention Day, Alzheimer's day, No Tobacco Day.

These days are celebrated so as to remind the public about its dangers associated with this kind of life style so that the poorly motivated people can decide to quit smoking and make their life beautiful.

Awareness now is much improved, than what it was in the past as images of dangerous effects are printed on the cigarette packs which can remind them when they pick up a cigarette.

Advertisements which appear in films etc showing smoking behavior also has a warning at the bottom "Smoking is injurious to health"

Does this technique really help people?

Chances are less as a smoker is fixed in his idea that all these facts are not really true. When he is struck with a disorder or a disease regrets may not help him as much as he wishes to.

Active smoking and passive smoking leaves a foot print in the breath of smokers which can be detected easily now with electronic gadgets available. This gadget will tell how much of CARBON MONOXIDE (carcinogenic) is there in the breath and how much of Carboxyhaemoglobin is there in the blood. This is a relative state of anaemia which slowly causes damage of whole body. Analogy of this would be CARBON MONOXIDE emission in vehicles which is polluting the world very much. This can be done very quickly and patient can see himself and with psycho-education his motivation can be enhanced.  More so for a pregnant lady smoker who is ignorant about effect of this on the fetus.

This breath analyzer can be used to monitor the smoking behavior during follow-up and along with counselling and other nicotine gum to wean them of cigarette smoking.

This approach will improve the abstinence rates which was not possible to achieve in the past as we lacked tools to demonstrate the ill effects of tobacco.

I wish and dream of NO TOBACCO DAY being celebrated 365x infinity by all the citizens of this world.