Nagaland Launches Tobacco-Free Youth Campaign 4.0 with New Targets

Nagaland has initiated the Tobacco-Free Youth Campaign 4.0 across eleven districts with specific goals to elevate tobacco-control enforcement by twenty percent. The sixty-day state-level launch event took place on October 28 at the Nagaland Institute of Allied and Healthcare, Paramedical, in Kohima.

Dr Imotemsu, Director of Family Welfare at the Directorate of Health and Family Welfare, served as the special guest for the launch. According to a press release from the department, the initiative is designed to strengthen tobacco prevention, enhance compliance with existing laws, and mobilize educational institutions and local communities to safeguard young people from using tobacco.

The campaign focuses on six core strategies, which include public awareness, creating tobacco-free educational institutions and villages, enforcing the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act of 2003 and the Prohibition of Electronic Cigarettes Act of 2019, social media engagement, and partnering with higher education institutions. Specific targets include holding at least thirty information, education, and communication events in every district, achieving a fifty percent increase in institutional compliance and village coverage, and engaging thirty percent of colleges and universities.

During the launch program, Dr Imotemsu emphasized the importance of using the sixty-day window to intensify control activities, improve district coordination, and maintain measures after the campaign concludes. Dr I Simon Sumi delivered the keynote address detailing the strategies and the dangers of tobacco use for youth. Similar district-level launches occurred across the state on the same day, featuring stakeholder discussions and pledge-taking sessions.