Soon, gory pictures on cigarette packs

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TOI reports -

 

New Delhi: From June 24, all packets of tobacco products will carry pictorial warnings in a bid to deter people from smoking.

The Union health ministry has issued the final notification, according to which 40% of the space on tobacco packs will have to carry the warnings. While cigarette and beedi packs will have to carry either a photo of infected human lungs or an X-ray plate of the chest of a man affected by cancer, packets of chewing and smokeless tobacco products will have to carry a graphic image of a scorpion, depicting cancer.

These photos were finalized and sent to the ministry by foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee on March 10. He was heading a group of ministers set up to look into the controversy and was authorized to take the final call on the images to be used.

According to the deadline set by the Shimla high court, the tobacco industry was supposed to introduce the pictorial warnings latest by March 17. However, the health ministry, which issued the notification on March 16, will ask the court to extend the deadline to June 24, so as to give the industry enough time to bring in the new labels. The industry wants the deadline stretched to August 24. The HC has asked health secretary Naresh Dayal to file an affidavit. The final hearing is on March 24.

Warning pics will change every year New Delhi: The Union health ministry has issued the final notification, according to which 40% of the space on tobacco packs will have to carry the warnings. The notification says the pictorial warnings will be changed every 12 months. While 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.

The notification says, "Each health warning has been specified in English and regional languages. Not more than two languages can be used on a single pack. Every person engaged directly or indirectly in the production, supply, import and distribution of tobacco products should ensure that every package has the specified health warning. The warnings will have to occupy 40% of the principal display area of the pack.

None of the elements of the specified warning are severed, covered or hidden in any manner when the packet is sealed. No package can be sold unless it carries the health warnings."

Experts say the mild pictorial warnings would defeat its purpose — of scaring away smokers and deterring them from smoking. Health minister Anbumani Ramadoss wanted pictures with shock value — like those depicting gory images of cancerous tumours, rotting teeth and diseased throats — that would make smokers quit.

Poonam Singh, deputy regional director of World Health Organisation, southeast Asia, told the Times of India that in India, there was widespread ignorance about the risks of smoking. "Ill effects of smoking appear slowly. So unless diseases like tuberculosis and lung cancer strike, people don't accept that smoking is dangerous," Singh added.