New pictorial warnings for tobacco products cleared by Union health minister Azad

The Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad has cleared the new pictorial warnings for implementation for tobacco products packages. The new notification issued on 27.5.2011, provides for strong pictorial warnings for smoking (cigarettes, bidis, cigars etc) and smokeless or chewing forms of tobacco products. A set of four pictures each of lung and oral cancer have been notified and will come into effect from 1.12.2011. The warnings will be rotated every two years from then onwards.

It may be recalled that the Government of India enacted a comprehensive legislation to combat the menace of tobacco, namely the Cigarettes and other tobacco products Regulation of (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, (COTPA) 2003. Besides providing for ban on smoking in public places, ban on sale of tobacco products to and by minors, prohibition of sale of tobacco products within 100 yards of educational institutions, ban on all advertisements of tobacco products, the law also provides for pictorial health warnings on packages of tobacco products.

After a long legal battle, the Rules relating to Section 7 of COTPA,2003, which mandates pictorial health warnings on tobacco products, came into implementation on 31st May, 2009. As India has also ratified WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the Government is committed to implement guidelines and provisions under FCTC. Article 11 of WHO FCTC recommends pictorials health warnings as an effective strategy for reduction of demand of tobacco.

There was feedback from different sectors that the existing health warnings are not strong and effective so as to influence tobacco users to quit the habit of tobacco use. As there is high prevalence of smokeless tobacco use in the country and the consumption is more among the lower socioeconomic class with low levels of literacy, it is hoped that strong pictorial warnings will definitely dissuade tobacco users from consuming tobacco products.

The Following are the Pictures that are proposed to be printed on the Smoking or Smokeless form of Tobacco Products..........