Lawyers insists on pictorial warnings on tobacco products

There is a groundswell of public opinion in favour of pictorial warning covering 85% of the packaging of cigarettes, bidis, chewable tobacco, etc. "We, the Lawyers-Against-Tobacco, urge you to show your golden heart and love for the nation by implementing 85% pictorial warning from 1st April 2016," says a letter written two days ago by Bar Association of Allahabad High Court to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"We felt very proud when your Government issued a notification 2 years back to make large pictorial warnings mandatory on every tobacco product. It was the need of the hour in a country where tobacco consumption starts at tender age of 10-12 years. Needless to say that effective pictorial warning will also deter uneducated people from picking up this habit..." says the letter, signed by Advocates Radha Kand Ojha and Ashok Kumar Singh, President and Hon. Secretary of the Bar Association, adding, "Considering the growing menace of tobacco which may ultimately affect our own kids, we have formed a coalition called Lawyers Against Tobacco."

The back story of this debate makes the blood boil with indignation. It is estimated that over 10 lakh Indians die of tobacco-related ailments every year, and the total health expenditure burden of tobacco use exceeds one lakh crore rupees, i.e. 12 per cent more than combined State and Central government expenditure on health (2011-12 statistics). The government's excise duty earning from tobacco barely covers a piffling 17 per cent of the health expenditure! But, ingoring this, the 15-member Parliamentary Committee on Subordinate Legislation, that included the bidi baron Shyama Charan Gupta, evidently feels that the tobacco industry deserves our sympathy and consideration. Just like last year, the introduction of pictorial warnings covering 85 per cent of the principal display area on both sides of all tobacco products hit a roadblock with the committee taking the position that increasing the size of the warning from the current 40 per cent on only one side of the packet to 85 per cent on both sides would be "too harsh" on the tobacco industry. It recommended a marginal increase to just 50 per cent.

Despite the overwhelming percentage of people consuming bidis and chewing tobacco, the committee is intent on diluting the warning on these products by restricting the warning to just one side of the bidi pack; only cigarettes will have the warning on both sides of the packet.

In a weak attempt to paint pictorial warnings as ineffectual, the committee has leaned heavily on the findings of a British American Tobacco company-sponsored study while overlooking a body of evidence gathered by independent researchers, which indicate that thanks to larger, graphic warnings, 58 per cent of smokers in Canada and nearly 54 per cent in Brazil and Thailand changed their opinion about the health consequences of smoking on seeing the warnings.

Source: Times of India