' Feel it and Teste it', that was the catchy advertisement I saw near the tiny grocery shop where I usually buy milk. I was curious and intrigued about it, but then I found out what it was about. It wasn't about a new soft or energy drink nor a new snack. Instead it was about something that, while legal, should be strongly regulated.

When you are in a local restaurant or tea-shop, you can't miss noticing the smoke from cigarettes that youngsters consume assiduously these days. While I normally look at them with almost contempt, I know that cigarettes are not illegal, and so they are within a person's right to destroy their life through them.

Yet what is actually illegal is to smoke inside closed spaces and in public ones. In addition, it is also illegal to sell cigarettes on 'the counter' while ordering a cup of milk tea or momos, but we know that this is a very common and accepted practice here.

I really wonder why youngsters smoke. On the one hand, it is the marketing of cigarette companies that forced them out of many developed nations, now they are reversing their efforts in developing and emerging nations. I do not like this at all, but, unfortunately, as per the rules of capitalism, it is legit, and it is a very well deliberate corporate strategy to diversify revenues.

In many ways, the dynamics unfolding here are out of control of the government, but what national authorities can do is to apply strong and strict regulations to reduce smoking. In the case of Nepal, the regulations are there, but they are not applied. The lack of enforcement, as we know, is a common thread of the whole governance system of the country.

Thinking of solutions to the problem looks like almost a banal thought. After all, we know what it takes to drastically reduce cigarettes (with them, also vaping whose health effects are even more devastating): first create awareness and then ensure that laws and regulations are strictly implemented. On the former, it is not that youths do not know about the effects of smoking, but still they do it.

Certainly for a good number of them, it can be a way to release their stress and their frustrations. Perhaps, a hypothesis is that, if the state of affairs of the country was different, maybe less youths would feel so alienated and, therefore, less inclined to smoke.

Possibly many of them do just for the sake of doing it because it is cool, because they feel 'good' about it. I do really appreciate that this same newspaper recently carried out a campaign against smoking. It was indeed a great initiative that should be followed upon and embraced also by other media houses. At the end of the day, fighting and vaping is a common responsibility.

Can private schools do something? Public health experts could be invited, citizens who have recovered from lung cancer due to smoking could come over and talk to the students. The CEOs and principals running these schools should also step in directly rather than just delegating the task to their academic staff.

Community schools should even be more explicit and determined in their duty to fight this plague. The reason is simple: in these schools, highly vulnerable kids are studying, children and youths who are at risk of dropping out any time. Smoking can be a way for them to temper and deal with their very complicated life circumstances.

For both public and private schools, the message should be one and unequivocal: smoking and vaping is not cool, it is, instead, very stupid. You really harm yourself, and at the same time, when you smoke where you should not be allowed, you also put in danger the lives of others through passive smoking.

I imagine a national campaign run by the major newspapers and televisions networks and the Federal Ministry of Health and Population, in partnership with their counterparts at the Provincial levels.

Then there is the second part of the equation. Enforcement and implementation of the rules. If the municipal police in Kathmandu can bother innocuous and peaceful street vendors, something that I disagree with, why can't they bother those restaurant and tea shops owners who sell cigarettes on the counter? Why don't they regulate the sale of cigarettes in the shops? Why can't they fine not only them but also those ordering cigarettes with their drinks and foods?

The incredible thing, if you think about it, is that rules are already there, but we need to implement them. It is that simple! Now I do understand that there are people and families whose income come from producing and selling cigarettes, that I repeat, till now, are not an illegal product. I just believe that the corporations adopting extreme marketing techniques like putting up posters and flyers on the walls, or pushing the sale in the restaurants, should simply do better.

Their executives should realize that some of their most 'successful' practices and behaviours are not only illegal but also unethical. Are they encouraging their children to 'feel it and teste it' as well?

Why a promising nation like Nepal should end up in the same situation experienced by many rich and developed nations with millions of deaths due to smoke? It seems that, as the country progresses and becomes more stable and richer, the people follow the same silly practices of their peers in the North. But they should realize when doing so that it is not only unproductive but also harmful to them.

There is only one way to fight smoke. We can start with the 'carrot', putting the message out that certain practices are no more going to be tolerated. Then we need to use a metaphoric 'stick', cracking down on illegal practices.

Hope Mayor Shah and Deputy Mayor Dangol can set an example and work to make Kathmandu a smokefree city by 2025.