VHAI launches campaign to implement larger pictorial warnings on Tobacco packets

New Delhi, March 9, KMW: Voluntary Health Association of India (VHAI) has intensified the public awareness campaign to support the move for a larger graphic health warning on tobacco products sold across India.
The prime objective of this campaign is to garner support through a petition that will be presented to the Government of India in March, 2015, signatures for which will be collected both online and on ground. The petition, which has been addressed to Union health Minister J. P. Nadda on behalf of oral cancer survivor, Sunita Tomar is currently available online athttp://chn.ge/1Dy6QQu.
According to a statement issued to KMW, Pertinently, the Union Government on 15th October, 2014 announced the new pictorial health warnings for tobacco products that has made India the global leader in pack warnings.
A notification was released requiring tobacco manufacturing companies to devote at least 85 percent of the surface areas of all tobacco products on both sides to graphically and literally represent the statutory warning. Beginning April 1, 2015 every tobacco product will carry on both sides pictorial depiction of throat and mouth cancer and a message in English, Hindi or any Indian language.
“We are trying to involve as many people as we can in the campaign. If a huge section of society raises its voice in support of using bigger pictorial warnings, the Government will implement the new pictorial health warnings from April 1, this year,” said Bhavna Mukhopadhyay, Executive Director, Voluntary Health Association of India.
At present, India ranks 136thin the Global Cigarette Package Health Warnings ranking, but this move elevates India to the 2nd position.
Interestingly, encouraged by the Indian Government decision on new pictorial health warnings, even Pakistan’s Health Ministry on 11th February, 2015 announced the new pictorial warning which will cover 85 percent of the cigarette pack on both sides from the current 40 percent.
Importantly, cricketing icon, Padma Bhushan awardee and India’s Ambassador for Tobacco Control, Rahul Dravid has congratulated the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, for its recent endeavours to strengthen the country’s tobacco control law.
Dravid has written to the Union Health Minister, applauding the Government for mandating 85% pictorial health warnings on tobacco product packages.
“I would like to congratulate the Health Ministry for mandating 85% pictorial health warnings for tobacco product packages to be enforced from April 1, 2015. This is indeed a laudable decision and will go a long way in informing the citizens of India about the serious health hazards of tobacco use by curbing the use of the tobacco pack as a medium of product promotion,” Dravid wrote in his letter.
While extending his support for tobacco control campaigns in India, he has also urged the Health Ministry to ensure that all provisions of the tobacco control law are adequately reinforced to plug any existing loopholes that are exploited by the tobacco industry.
Pictorial health warnings are meant to alert, encourage and support tobacco users in their decision to give up the use of tobacco. It has been demonstrated that picture health warnings are more effective than text-only warnings, especially for people who are illiterate. It has also been demonstrated that the effectiveness of health warnings increases with size.
According to the recent MoHFW – WHO supported PHFI study, It estimated that the total economic costs attributable to tobacco use from all diseases in India in the year 2011 amounted to a staggering Rs 1, 04,500 crores — 12% more than the combined state and central government expenditure on health care in the same year.
India has 12 crore tobacco users, according to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) 2009-2010, which means every ninth Indian, consumes tobacco. Tobacco kills about 10 lakh Indians every year.