Candy-coated cancer.

• Author: Waldman, Amy
• Position: International

Gutkha, a smokeless tobacco that's as portable as chewing gum and as sweet as candy, has become extremely popular in India--even with kids as young as 6. The problem? Doctors say it's leading to an epidemic of oral cancer. About 30 percent of cancers in India are in the head and neck (including mouth ulcers and cheek tumors), compared with just 4.5 percent in the West.

Gutkha sales skyrocketed in the 1990s into what is now a booming billion-dollar-a-year business. A 1998 survey of boys ages 13 to 15 found that 20 percent used three to five packs of gutkha a...