|
Silencing
Smoking Guns
Zafar
Zang Singh
| |
With the law
in place,
Punjab
should seize the initiative and ban smoking in public places to
become the first state in the country to do so. |
|
 Hectic
lobbying by anti-tobacco groups over the last five years finally
bore fruit when the Indian cabinet accepted to place pictorial
warnings on tobacco products to dissuade people from increasing
tobacco intake –eating and smoking. Once implemented, no tobacco
product would be exempted from the pictorial warning and 40 per cent
of the space on tobacco packs will have to carry the warnings.
The warning
"Smoking Kills" on cigarette and beedi products and "Tobacco Kills"
on smokeless or chewing tobacco products will appear in white font
on a red background, every specified health message will be in bold
black font on a white background.
Either an X-ray
plate of a cancer infected chest or images of infected human lungs,
will be displayed as a deterrent. Chewing tobacco packets will also
have to carry the image of a scorpion in order to depict the dangers
of cancer.
Even though the
signs are not as severe as wanted by the Indian Health Minister
Ambamani Ramadoss and activists, it is a step in the right
direction. WSN had also joined the campaign with an open letter to
the Indian health minister and participation in campaigns of social
and health groups.
Though the
tobacco prevention statute was passed in 2003 and provided for
specified warnings on every package of cigarette or any tobacco
products in a conspicuous manner, under pressure from the tobacco
lobby, an indifferent cabinet of ministers took nearly five years to
implement the provisions only after it was unable to find no more
illogical excuses before the Himachal High Court which is
adjudicating a public interest petition in the case.
 According
to the Global Youth Tobacco Survey, by Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention,
India will lose
a million lives every year to tobacco if consumption is not
controlled. The survey found increasing incidence of tobacco intake
among school children –boys and girls in rural and urban India,
nearly one in five schoolchildren in
India
use some form of tobacco. Currently, the death toll in
India
is in the region of around one lakh people every year with nearly
two-thirds under the age of 40.
As far as Punjab
is concerned, the survey of 2014 students found that 2.3 percent
students use tobacco in some form, 14.1% have one or more parents
who smoke, chew, or apply tobacco, the exposure to environmental
smoking risks was less than 1 percent, 10.9% live in homes where
others smoke in their presence and 24.1% are around others who smoke
in places outside their home.
The most
encouraging part of the
Punjab portion
of the survey was that 88.8% think smoking should be banned from
public places and 86.3 percent were convinced that passive smoking
is dangerous. If the government of
Punjab
is to listen to the voice of these statistics, on the lines of
Chandigarh, Punjab too should venture to become the first smoke-free
state in the country.
It is satisfying
to note that according to the GYTS survey passive smoking in public
places has been reduced from 49 percent to 40 percent from 2003 to
2006. To build upon the advantage provided by law, its
implementation must be ensured. In public and private offices,
management should ensure this by creating smoke rooms for those who
want to smoke, so that others can be spared of the dangers of
passive smoking.
More than
policing, awareness and publicity will do the job. The World Health
Organisation should intensify its efforts.
(Zafar Zang
Singh may be contacted at zafarzang@gmail.com)
26
March 2008
|
Read Also