The Hindu : New Delhi News : School kids to launch war on tobacco use

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Sep 26, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

School kids to launch war on tobacco use

By Bindu Shajan Perappadan

NEW DELHI, SEPT. 25. Giving a pass to Delhi's legendary "chalta hai" attitude, school children are preparing for a frontal assault on tobacco use in the country. Demanding a more "pungent" health warning on tobacco packs, over 20,000 school children from 19 cities across the country, led by young campaigners from 300 schools both private and government-run, have involved themselves in a one-of-a-kind health campaign.

Sweeping aside ineffective rules, sluggish implementing agencies and taking matters into their own hands, the students have demanded a more effective and eye catching pictorial health warning to covers tobacco products pack. This, according to them, will not only allow illiterates to understand the ill-effects of tobacco use, but will also serve as a more severe deterrent to young tobacco users.

Beginning this Sunday, September 26, which is World Heart Day, school children from Delhi will go public with the first of its kind advocacy against the use of tobacco and as a prelude to the event student representatives met the Union Health Minister, Anbumani Ramdoss, today to submit a copy of the pictorial health warning and also discuss the various lacunae in the Indian Tobacco Control Act, 2003.

At the tête-à-tête with the Union Minister, the students explained to him the manner in which the tobacco industry was violating the ban on advertising by exceeding the prescribed limits for sale signboards, through surrogate advertising and publication of photographs of Formula One Motor Race drivers wearing cigarette logos. They also apprised him of their initiative.

Student representatives with help from HRIDAY-SHAN, a non-government organisation working in the area, have submitted a pictorial postcard with signatures of 11,800 students, 700 teachers and 800 parents of Delhi and students from Goa, Himachal Pradesh and Lucknow, asking the Ministry to get serious about implementation of the Indian Tobacco Control Act. What the students are trying to advocate is the fact that tobacco causes cancer and can kill.

"We have observed that shopkeepers are violating rules by displaying a single board that exceeds the permissible size limit and the size of the health warning also occupies less that 25 per cent of top area of the board,'' said K. Srinath, the executive director of HRIDAY-SHAN.

The programme initiated in collaboration with PATH Canada has organised a signature campaign to support the provision of displaying health warning on tobacco products under the Indian Tobacco Control Act, 2003.

The group is now hoping to play a positive role in assisting the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in its tobacco control programme, especially relevant to the protection of young people from active and passive consumption of tobacco products. These efforts, hope the students, will be "effective especially for the protection of young people from active and passive consumption of tobacco products and in the end will help save lives''.

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