TheNational “India Needs to Improve Warnings Depiction on Cigarette Packs,” Says WHO

“India Needs to Improve Warnings Depiction on Cigarette Packs,” Says WHO

Oct 15, 2014 Tushita News 0

In the list of 198 countries that provide ample warning to the smokers by means of graphical representation of menaces that smoking can potentially cause, on the packets of cigarettes, India has fallen down to 136^th rank.

The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, had made a rule few years ago that the warnings have to be pictographically depicted on both sides of a packet. India, however has fallen behind due to not obeying this rule.

Shockingly, the rank 136, is the last among all SAARC countries that stick to the rule of providing sufficient warning.

The Cigarette Package Health Warnings: International Status Report 2014’, which was handed out at the 6^th session of Conference of the Parties WHO FCTC in Moscow, said that although India was one of the primary nations to give consent to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, it still failed to comply with even the most basic rules.

As per the reports, “While many countries mandate images on both sides [all major visible areas] of tobacco packages, India is one of the few countries requiring graphic warning labels to be placed ONLY on one side of tobacco packages, covering only 20 per cent of the entire package. There is strong evidence to suggest that tobacco users are less likely to notice the image if they are only on one side,”

In the list which was dispensed in the year 2012, India had held the 123^rdrank.

The FCTC makes a competitive list of 198 nations based on the proportions of the warnings that rightly portray the hazardous nature of the product on the outer packaging.

It also lists the territories and countries that need picture cautions and drafts the international impetus for implementing plain packing.

The top three countries on the aforementioned list, according to their average size of pictorial warnings, on maximum area of the packs are Thailand at 85%, Australia at 82.5% and Uruguay at 80%.

WHO had last year also cautioned India against the grown sale of e-cigarettes and how they encouraged the masses to take up smoking in an all new form.

government health care, health, healthcare policy, smoking hazards

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Tushita

Tushita is a political writer at thenational.net. Her deep rooted interest in politics, passion for writing and craze for travelling define her. Writing since her school days, she aspires to write lifelong and make the world a happier place to live with the power of her pen.