Mumbai: Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan too has joined an anti-tobacco campaign and started drinking a lot of water to give up cigarettes.
''I drink water every time I feel like having a cigarette and I kind of feel like I have achieved something really big,'' Khan told a national daily in an interview published on Wednesday.
He described smoking as disgusting and said it was ''a killer,'' but said he was unsure how long he would be able to keep away from cigarettes.
''There is a high chance that I will go back to that deadly addiction, but I hope not,'' the daily quoted him as saying.
Bollywood's top actor Shah Rukh Khan also is trying to quit smoking.
Last year, Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss wrote to Shah Rukh Khan, asking him to join an anti-tobacco campaign.
Health experts say teenagers who watch films in which stars smoke are three times more likely to try smoking, and those whose favorite stars light up on screen are 16 times more likely to have positive attitudes toward smoking.
A World Health Organisation survey of tobacco use in movies made by India's massive, prolific Hindi-language film industry - dubbed ''Bollywood'' - showed that more than 76 per cent of its most popular films in 1991 to 2002 depicted some sort of tobacco use, mostly cigarettes.
The WHO says tobacco claims 5 million lives a year. According to government statistics, more than 800,000 Indians die each year from smoking-related illnesses.
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