The mask comes off: Nicotine is the enemy that India has to name

Key points

• This year’s World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) theme, “Unmasking the appeal: countering nicotine and tobacco addiction”, is not merely a slogan.
• It is a diagnosis of the malady.
• For decades, the tobacco industry has hidden its most powerful weapon in plain sight, i.e. hiding nicotine as a substance of concern while tobacco combustion products and carcinogens in them were made to take center stage.
• This framing was not accidental.
• The mask must finally come off, and nowhere is that unmasking more urgent than in India.