Smokers rushing to city airport’s smoking lounge now have to face up to a grim reality. Staring straight at them is a two-foot-long poster showing how tobacco-related cancer can permanently alter a person’s visage. In fact, the airport may be among the very few spots in the city or even the country to put out such an anti-tobacco message. Although the Union government issued a notification on August 11, 2011, making the poster mandatory outside every vendor who sells tobacco products-be it cigarettes or gutka-little has been done to ensure its implementation.

At the airport too, it was an anti-tobacco activist’s letter to the Mumbai International Airport Pvt Ltd (MIAL), which ensured that the law was followed. On February 11, activist Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi, an associate professor at Tata Memorial Hospital in Parel and closely associated with the Smoke Free Mumbai project, found a tobacco major’s counter near Mumbai airport’s gate number A3 blocking a portion of the emergency exit.

“I wrote to the airport manager pointing out this as well as the violations to the Tobacco Control Act,” said Dr Chaturvedi. “As per the amended Section 6 of the Cigarette and Other Tobacco Product Act, every tobacco shop must display a 2 X 1 feet warning at the point of sale. This warning contains a picture of mouth cancer along with a text warning. The airport shop didn’t have any such display,” he said.

Within 10 days, MIAL officials put up a poster with a grim picture and a warning against sale of tobacco products to people under 18 years of age. An MIAL spokesperson said: “MIAL considers passenger feedback seriously and we believe that this is just another step in improving our service quality. ”

The anti-tobacco lobby is, predictably, happy. “If airport authorities can ensure that companies put up such a poster, why cannot city health officials do the same,” asked Dr Chaturvedi.

Dr P C Gupta of NGO Healis, which works in the field of tobacco control, said that health authorities have done little to ensure that the warning poster is put up at every point of sale. “The amended Act was implemented in August 2011 but no punitive action has been taken so far. Dr Gupta pointed out that tobacco companies usually help vendors by providing lights or colourful panels. “This may be preventing them from putting up such anti-tobacco posters in their shops,” he felt.

Mumbai’s executive health officer Dr Anil Badiwadekar, however, said that the BMC has been holding meetings with NGOs and associations to ensure the law is implemented in full. “There was a delay because of the elections but we will soon ensure that vendors put up the signages,” he added.

Times View

Almost a decade back, India was among the first countries in the world to embrace anti-tobacco policies. Implementation has, however, been slow. A case in point is the amended Section 6 of the Cigarettes & Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003. Released in August 2011, the amendment wants vendors to put up a signage with a grim photo and text spelling out that it is an offence to sell tobacco products to those below 18 years of age. It would do well to the city’s, and the nation’s, heal8th if youngsters are discouraged from taking up this life-threatening habit.

Expressing dismay over flagrant disregard of anti-tobacco laws, social circles have said effective on-ground implementation of the regulations will only serve the purpose of tobacco control. Every year May 31, is being observed around the world as ‘World No Tobacco Day’. The day is intended to draw global attention to the widespread prevalence of tobacco use and its negative health effects but unfortunately the governmental department has done noting in this regard.

Wold Health Organization (WHO) has announced that the theme for ‘2011 World No Tobacco Day’ is the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

In line with the spirit of Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the government has already enacted various tobacco control measures through the Prohibition of Smoking and Protection of Non-Smokers Health Ordinance 2002 (LXXIV of 2002). Social circles stressed the need for efficacious implementation of tobacco control laws across the country and for curtailing sale of smuggled, duty-non-paid, and non-compliant tobacco products.

They said that sincere efforts are needed to prevent the spread of tobacco use as smoking at indoor public places, tobacco product advertising and promotion, printing of pictorial health warnings on packets and availability of duty-evaded and attractive looking smuggled brands in the market are still widespread.

Pakistan is the 5th country in Asia, and the 26th country in the entire world, to introduce pictorial health warnings on cigarette packs under The Cigarette Printing of Warning Ordinance, 2002.

It is common knowledge that violations of regulations regarding smoking in indoor public places, tobacco product advertising and promotion, printing of pictorial health warnings on packets and availability of duty-evaded and attractive looking smuggled brands in the market are still widespread. According to sources, more than 15 billion smuggled and duty-non-paid cigarettes are sold annually in the country.

This illicit trade not only causes annual loss of more than Rs 10 billion to the national exchequer, but also undermines public health agenda as these tobacco products fail to comply with the regulations issued by the Ministry of Health, the citizens complained.

There are 25 million smokers in Pakistan. Out of them 25 percent are females while according to a WHO report 36 percent adult males and 9 percent adult female are addict of smoking, it was stated in the report that lady health workers can play an important role against smoking.

British American Tobacco Plc (BATS)’s Australian unit said it will cut prices if the country passes legislation to ban branding on cigarette packages. BAT Australia Chief Executive David Crow told reporters today in Sydney that the legislation wouldn’t reduce smoking rates and would result in a flood of cheap and illegal products. The company, Europe’s largest cigarette maker, has a 42 percent share of Australia’s tobacco market and makes Lucky Strike and Pall Mall cigarettes.

“We will be forced to lower price over the short term to compete with the illegal tobacco market,” Crow said. “They will sell for 30 to 40 percent lower than normal cigarettes, which means more people will smoke.”

Health Minister Nicola Roxon unveiled the proposal on April 7 that would force cigarettes to be sold in plain dark olive packages with health warnings. Company names will appear on the boxes in uniform size and style of printing. The legislation, if passed by parliament, will take effect Jan. 1, 2012.

Opposition Liberal-National leader Tony Abbott said the coalition would support the laws if there was evidence it would reduce the number of smokers.

Australia last year increased tobacco taxes 25 percent and began an A$85 million ($90 million) four-year advertizing campaign to combat smoking. Smoking costs Australia A$31.5 billion each year, mainly through health expenses.

The Australian Greens party today said it wants a floor put in tobacco prices.

Eminent singer Shaan, who has been entertaining the masses with his melodious voice since decades, has now become the ambassador for anti-tobacco campaign. Reportedly, Shaan, who is known to be one of the most versatile playback singers of the present times, has been roped in for the anti-tobacco campaign that has been launched by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Not only this, the socially responsible crooner has also unveiled a song titled ‘Life Se Panga Mat Le Yaar’ for the campaign. The song is aimed at inspiring the youth on giving up smoking.

Held at the Tata Memorial Cancer Hospital, the event saw Shaan very excited about being part of the noble cause.

The anti-smoking song
Shaan’s anti-smoking number has been written by Rekha Nigam and it shows the Kala Chowki slum area of Parel in central Mumbai.

“The video shows Shaan dancing with children and encouraging them to take problems in their stride instead of worsening the situation by consuming tobacco. Tobacco use is a ‘panga’ they can live without. The entire video has a very pro-life stance, is youth centric and speaks of their dreams and aspirations,” informed an insider.

Adding to this, the singer said, “Tobacco consumers are like suicide bombers – killing themselves and threatening others by passive smoking.”

He also expressed grief on loosing his father to the evil that has engulfed the present society, and causes almost 1.6 million global deaths every year.

Govt serious about the tobacco control programme
Meanwhile, the Health Ministry is taking stern steps to help tackle the problem of excess tobacco use, especially for those in the age bracket of 13-15 years.

Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, B.K. Prasad said, “Tobacco usage is deep rooted in the Indian society and the menace can be overcome only through greater awareness and people participation in the anti-tobacco programme.”

Well, we do hope that Shaan will be able to help the government in rooting out the evil of smoking from the society.

With just days to go until the end of the legislative session, funding for anti-tobacco programs in Indiana are in jeopardy. CHANCES for Indiana Youth says if the budget passes, it will cut funding by almost $4 million dollars. That means CHANCES would have to eliminate four employees and many of its programs. Taxpayers dollars aren’t used to fund statewide anti-tobacco programs.

It comes from a settlement Indiana received in 1998 after the State Attorney General sued the tobacco industry. CHANCES says you should contact State Representatives, Senators, and the Governor’s Office if you think something should be done to change this.

“Let the politicians know do they really need to stop playing politics with dollars that was paid by Hoosiers’ lives and so that’s really our message these dollars need to stay with the state, stay in prevention efforts and really be put to use where they should be,” CHANCES Brandon Halleck said.

CHANCES says preventative programs have been proven to work and decrease Medicare dollars spent on tobacco related illnesses.

The World Health Organisation welcomed the Turkmen parliament’s recent ratification of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), UN Radio’s Russian service reported March 30. Ratification, which requires Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov’s approval, demonstrates a commitment to protect citizens from smoking’s harmful consequences, according to the WHO.

Countries that ratify the treaty have three years to institute warnings on cigarette packs and five years to ban all tobacco product advertising.

Of the 53 countries in the UN’s European region, only Andorra, Monaco, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have not signed the FCTC. The Czech Republic and Switzerland signed the pact, but have not ratified it.

The Australian government on Monday launched its new advertising campaign calling on all Indigenous Australians to quit smoking. The new campaign will start hitting the airwaves, newspapers and TV screens today as the Australian Government continues its world-leading action to combat tobacco use.
In a national first, a new hard-hitting advertising campaign urging Indigenous Australians to break the chain and quit smoking hit the airwaves, newspapers and TV screens today as the Gillard Government continues its world leading action to combat tobacco use.

This campaign depicts a young Indigenous woman reflecting on her own experience of having lost family and friends to smoking related diseases and how she doesn’t want her own children to think dying early from smoking related diseases is normal.

In launching the new campaign, Minister for Health and Ageing Nicola Roxon and Minister for Indigenous Health Warren Snowdon called on Indigenous Australians to break the family chain and kick the lethal habit.
“This campaign addresses the harsh reality that 1 in 2 Indigenous Australians smoke, and 1 in 5 will die from smoking related diseases,” Minister Roxon said.

“The statistics are alarming, but the message is simple: break the chain and give up a habit that will kill you.”

Minister Snowdon said that smoking alone accounts for around 20 per cent of all Indigenous deaths, and it’s the number one cause of chronic conditions and diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disease among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

“Smoking kills. It’s that simple and the Gillard Government is not going to stand back when death and disease caused by smoking can be prevented.

“Our Government is committed to halving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander smoking rates by 2018. This campaign with complement our new tobacco health workforce which has already been rolled out across in the first 20 of 57 regions around Australia,” Mr Snowdon said.

This is also significant because it is the first Indigenous-specific television commercial as part of a national health campaign.

The newly launched campaign is part of the Gillard Government’s world leading anti-tobacco measures including subsidised or free nicotine patches, proposed plain-paper packaging, raising the tobacco tax excise in the last Budget and locating Indigenous Tobacco Action Workers in 57 regions across the nation.

Dr Tom Calma, National Coordinator, Tackling Indigenous Smoking, welcomed the campaign that reflects the life circumstances confronting the majority of Indigenous Australians.

“One in two of our people smoke and one in five die from smoking related diseases. This anti-smoking campaign is providing information and support to help our people make informed choices to give up smoking and address unhealthy behaviours,” Dr Calma said.

A group of Oxford High School students took on “Big Tobacco” and won. The Board of Health has voted to make Oxford the fifth community in Massachusetts to ban the sale of tobacco products in pharmacies, drugstores and other “health care institutions.” The ban went into effect this month and affects CVS, Walmart and Rite Aid stores in town. Boston, Needham, Newton and Everett have similar bans on tobacco sales.

Fall River’s City Council narrowly approved a “first reading” of a new tobacco sales ordinance Tuesday. Passage depends on a March 22 vote, according to a spokesman in the city clerk’s office.

Michael J. DeAngelis, spokesman for CVS, said the Oxford store was one of a “tiny minority” of the chain’s 7,100 stores in 41 states to have tobacco sales banned.

“Our policy is to comply with all local laws and regulations.” He declined to comment on whether CVS would challenge the new regulation, noting, “We wouldn’t comment on potential litigation.”

Terry M. Fike, clerk for the Oxford Board of Health, said all three stores affected are in compliance, and have made no comment to the board, and said, “If your business is supposed to support good health, it is a contradiction to sell products known to cause health problems.”

Primary sponsors of the new regulation were the 15 student members of “I Connect 84 HBU (How About You),” the Oxford High School chapter of The84.org, an anti-tobacco student-led Massachusetts organization.

Chapter adviser Dixie M. Lawrence, a health teacher at OHS, said that the ban on tobacco sales was just one step, if a major one, in limiting tobacco use in town. She offered special thanks to D. J. Wilson, tobacco control director for the Massachusetts Municipal Association, and Karyn Johnson of the Worcester Regional Tobacco Control Collaborative for their support in speaking with the health board.

“Tobacco companies are busy and they are devious as they try to target potential new, young smokers. We need to get busy to stop them,” Ms. Lawrence said.

The group is planning its own campaign targeting young people with a Harry Potter-based public service announcement on local access cable television premiering March 16 and an in-school anti-tobacco demonstration on March 21.

Club members also will be out in force in a silent protest, scouring local sidewalks for cigarette butts on “Butts Out Day,” March 19.

“Butts are disgusting. We’ll wear gloves,” Ms. Lawrence said.

Sophomore Cierra P. Wolfe, 15, president of the local chapter, said most of the club’s members have lost a family member or friend to diseases believed to have been caused by tobacco products. “My grandfather died of lung cancer.”

Club member Jazmine S. O’Day, 16, said, “I’ve lost family members and my mom lost friends. She hasn’t smoked for a couple of months.”

Ryan M. Donovan, 16, chapter vice president, said he believes “84’s message” is vital, since the tobacco companies are targeting young people with products such as candy mints and hand gel laced with nicotine, flavored rolling papers, cigarettes in colorful packages and pink cigars, all of which are now banned from stores with pharmacies in Oxford.

Ms. Lawrence said, “I lost both my parents to cancer caused by tobacco use. Tobacco companies seem to be targeting a young audience, trying to start a lifelong habit.”

She pointed out that advertising signs in local stores are normally set at the 3-foot level, “targeting kids. Do you see anyone 3 feet tall here?”

She said the “84” in The84.org comes from the fact that “84 percent of teens in Massachusetts do not use tobacco products, but we would like to see 100 percent.”

Local club member Manjushree Burdekar, 16, said she cheered when the Board of Health voted to ban tobacco sales at pharmacies. “I thought it would take longer. We had three meetings with the board before they voted. It was so exciting.”

School Committee Vice Chairman Brenda A. Ennis said she hoped other towns would pass similar amendments to their regulations on tobacco. “These kids were persistent and took their campaign to heart. They were triumphant. We are very happy that some of the best from Oxford High made a difference. They are at the cusp of something big.”

Health secretary Andrew Lansley must have been confident when he strode to work on No Smoking Day last week that his long-awaited Tobacco Control Plan would attract little criticism. Tobacco, after all, is an easy target, and smokers – well, who cares about them? They’re just a dwindling minority – deluded, addicted and dirty. No room for them in David Cameron’s ‘big society’.

At 9.30am prompt the Department of Health issued a written ministerial statement. Following months of indecision, the coalition government had finally decided to implement Labour’s tobacco display ban. In addition, Lansley declared, it would “consider” plain packaging.
Traditionally, when tobacco control policies have been announced, the principal opposition has come from two camps – tobacco manufacturers and consumers, the latter represented by the smokers’ group Forest.
In recent years tobacco retailers have fought hard to save their businesses from excessive regulation, but last week I witnessed a significant new development. For the first time in the war on tobacco a genuine coalition was forming that was neither pro nor anti-tobacco. Instead it was pro-enterprise and anti-big government.
It revealed itself with a letter to the Daily Telegraph, signed by the directors and chief executives of several leading think tanks and pressure groups – including the Adam Smith Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Centre for Policy Studies, and the TaxPayers Alliance.
“If the coalition is committed to defeating the enemies of enterprise, as David Cameron, the prime minister, claims,” they wrote, “a good start would be to call a halt to the relentless campaign to ‘denormalise’ smoking through an endless barrage of new controls, directives and diktats.
“Mr Cameron claimed last weekend that he would wage war on bureaucrats who concoct ridiculous rules and regulations. Banning the branding of tobacco products or making cigarettes an under-the-counter product would be yet another victory for these very bureaucrats.”
Dr Helen Evans, director of Nurses for Reform and a signatory to the letter in the Telegraph, said: “Away from all the government’s blather concerning enterprise, freedom and personal responsibility, the illiberal jackboots of the do-gooders are again on the march.”
Agreeing that the government’s measures “are fundamentally illiberal”, Tom Clougherty, executive director of the Adam Smith Institute, added: “It seems to me that tobacco is at the coalface of a much bigger cultural battle, in which capitalism, individualism and rationality are all coming under relentless attack by the enemies of freedom.”
The display ban, said the National Federation of Retail Newsagents (NFRN), is a “betrayal of our nation of shopkeepers”, while the Tobacco Retailers Alliance declared itself “disappointed” by the government’s plans.
The voices of opposition didn’t end there, and many were from traditional Tory voters.
Responding to my article on Conservative Home (‘Whatever happened to the party of business, de-regulation and personal responsibility?’), typical comments included: “Nanny state, just like before!”, “Where’s the ‘change’ we were promised last May? This is just being hit with a different coloured stick”, “As someone who has recently quitted smoking, I can honestly say that government diktats like this actively make me question it.”
For once, Conservative ministers are unable to blame the Lib Dems. In opposition, after all, both parties opposed a tobacco display ban.
Questioned on BBC Radio Five Live last week, the health secretary argued that politicians are allowed to change their minds if there is new evidence. He’s right, but where is the new evidence?
What has happened (apart from public health minister Anne Milton attending the Action on Smoking and Health AGM in December) to justify such a stunning and apparently hypocritical volte-face?
Is it, as one MP suggested privately, just “politics”? In other words, politicians will do one thing in opposition and quite the reverse in power. If that is the case the health secretary has disappointed not only millions of voters but, it could be argued, brought politics into disrepute.
I have never been a member of any political party but ¬- sometimes through gritted teeth – I have always voted Conservative. In May 2010 I couldn’t wait to see the back of Labour. To me Labour were architects of something far worse than the nanny state. Britain had become a bully state.
Adults were no longer being educated to make informed choices about our lifestyle. We were being forced to change through the use of heavy-handed legislation and an increasing number of petty rules and regulations.
David Cameron promised to change that. “Nudge” would replace coercion. The government’s Tobacco Control Plan has nothing to do with nudging and everything to do with coercion. The clue is the target: reducing the number of smokers from 21.2 per cent to 18.5 per cent or less among adults within five years.
Government will do everything it can to achieve that target – including denormalising, stigmatising and marginalising smokers – so that a substantial number of informed adults are forced to give up a perfectly legal habit.
Last night a friend and Conservative party member sent me a copy of a letter she has written to the prime minister. Citing the decision to implement the tobacco display ban as “but one example” that the Conservatives are failing to live up to their billing as the self-styled “party of change”, she notes:
“I am clearly not the only one who is overwhelmed by disappointment. Cases like this merely make it harder for grass roots campaigners such as myself to stand on doorsteps and convince people to get out and vote Conservative.”
Many people, including long-term Conservative activists, are genuinely appalled by the government’s U-turn on tobacco display and its decision to embrace the culture of hyper-regulation that was a hallmark of the previous regime.
Today Andrew Lansley is looking down the barrel of his own shotgun. Sure, he has support from all the usual anti-tobacco suspects. But the coalition against big government (and political expediency) has the potential to derail not only the coalition but the Conservative party itself.