Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Stop this tobacco menace' that was published in Newsband

Stop this tobacco menace

There is need to prohibit the sale of cigarettes. One way is by raising the minimum age from 18 to 21 for the sale of tobacco products. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is determined to wage an all-out war against tobacco consumption. This had become clear when Tax rates on tobacco products were increased steeply in the last budget.  

But in spite of taking such a measure, the cigarettes will continue to remain affordable to even young children and low-income individuals so long as cigarettes can be bought as single sticks. The only way to make higher pricing impinge on consumption is by selling them in packets of 10 or 20; it will make experimentation and initiation by children more difficult.

The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control “prohibits” the sale of cigarettes individually or in small packets as it “increases affordability”. FCTC move and banning the sale of tobacco products within a 100-metre radius of any educational institution should be appreciated. This should be in addition to making cigarettes unaffordable,

The Ministry has failed to go the whole hog and confined its focus to cigarettes. So, there is a real possibility of a sizeable number of youth and low-income individuals turning to bidis and tobacco chewing. Though, the health ministry seems to take stringent steps to curb the menace, it is also required to start from the basic products such as bidis, chewing tobacco which spell misery for the most ignorant section of society.

Another thing is enforcement of the ban on smoking in public places is nearly non-existent in India. Neither increase in bar of age limit nor ban on sale of loose cigarettes will do any harm to Indians but perhaps making them aware of its harm since their childhood specially in remote areas or rural areas will work much more. We can do it by introducing one chapter in each of the classes till tenth, by tobacco awareness programs etc.

Who will monitor the sales? When the laws on smoking in public places and sale of tobacco around educational institutions couldn't be monitored! Our policing has to be very different from what it is today to effect a Social Change, that such legislations want! Illicit sale of marijuana and hashish are on a rise amongst youngsters, availability is easy, and there are no attempts to check such illegal activities.

Major source of tobacco sales is the inspiration people get from movies. The government should come out with new set of guidelines for issue of certificate by CNBC, where in, it can state that scenes depiciting smoking can be reduced. Also Ministry of Health, can call for the meeting of federation of film producers, directors and leading actors to address the concern of the government on the growing incidents of tobacco based dieseas and how it affects the health care budget as well the individual family. They can be requested to think of eradicating or reducing the smoking scenes in the films.

The truth could be that the Government is not willing to stop this tobacco menace simply because if it does so there will be loss of money to public exchequer.