Shimla: More than 21 percent of the adults in Himachal Pradesh use some form of tobacco. These include over 880,000 smokers, far higher than tobacco chewers, says state Health Minister Kaul Singh.

The state has stepped up efforts to sustain the smoke-free status. Recently, it has banned the sale of single cigarettes and 'bidi', the minister said at a conference organised on tobacco control by Bloomberg in New York on Tuesday.