The Hindu : New Delhi News : Appeal for display of pictorial warnings on tobacco products

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Tuesday, Jan 15, 2008
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Appeal for display of pictorial warnings on tobacco products

Staff Reporter

Implementation date postponed four times

NEW DELHI: A group of non-government organisations have appealed to Members of Parliament to push for early implementation of effective pictorial warnings on tobacco product packages.

The implementation date for displaying pictorial warnings on tobacco product packages was first put off on June 1, 2007, and thereafter postponed four times, the latest deferment being up to March 17, 2008. “The arguments advanced by the tobacco industry are deceptive and diversionary. The beedi industry has been especially vocal in raising the bogey of large-scale unemployment occurring as a result of pictorial warnings. This is manifestly untrue as the decline in tobacco consumption is likely to be slow and steady for the next two decades (as per World Bank and World Health Organisation estimates) and will be partially offset by the growing population (even if the proportion of persons consuming tobacco declines, the absolute number of persons doing so will not decline),” said Public Health Foundation of India president K. Srinath Reddy.

Tobacco claims around 1 million lives every year in India. The annual death toll is projected to rise rapidly over the next 20 years, to exceed two million per year. In India, multiple forms of tobacco are marketed and consumed -- all of them have serious health consequences in the form of many diseases and avoidable early death. Much of this burden falls on the poor as they are the most frequent consumers of tobacco (beedi being the most commonly consumed form).

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