Indians just don't quit, especially when it comes to smoking. According to the first nationally representative case control study of smoking and death in India, only 2% of adults were found to have quit smoking in the country. However, almost 90% of them did so after they had developed serious diseases. In comparison, China, which a decade back had similar cessation rate among smokers like India, has greatly improved to almost 10%. India's eastern neighbour Bangladesh too is better off with nearly 8% of smokers giving up smoking annually. India's statistics can look even more shameful if compared to some western countries. While the quit rate among smokers in UK stands at 40%, in US and Canada it is at 30% each. In Poland, the cessation rate stands at 25% while Thailand's estimates stand at 15%. According to health minister A Ramadoss, a serious lack of awareness among Indian smokers on the ill effects of tobacco is the main reason behind such poor quit rates. He told TOI, "Indian smokers are just not aware that smoking kills. The younger population too is naive about its ill effects and just doesn't care. Public icons like filmstars continue to smoke in movies, influencing their fans. The health ministry is committed to reducing this ill. We have allocated Rs 500 crore under the 11th Five-Year Plan for just anti-tobacco programmes.' India is home to nearly 12 crore smokers. More than onethird of men and about 5% of women aged 30-69 smoke either cigarettes or bidis (which contain only about a quarter as much tobacco as a cigarette). Smoking already causes 1 lakh female deaths and 6 lakh male deaths a year, between the ages of 30-69. According to lead author of the study Prof Prabhat Jha of the Centre for Global Health Research (CGHR), Canada, any type of tobacco use is bad for health. Jha said, "India will see a million tobacco deaths a year from 2010, more than the sum of annual deaths in US, Canada and UK combined.' SMOKE TRAIL World has more than 1 billion smokers Above 80% of them live in low and middle income countries Countries collect 500 times more money in tobacco taxes than what they spend on anti-tobacco efforts Tobacco accounts for 1 in 10 adult deaths Tobacco kills more than half its users 100 million deaths were caused by tobacco in the 20th century