New Delhi (ISJ) ? After almost three months of Supreme Court order banning manufacture, storage and sale of all forms of chewing tobacco products, Delhi government has asked police in the national capital to enforce the ban.
The apex court in its order on September 23, 2016 banned sale, storage and manufacturing of chewing tobacco products.
?You are therefore, requested to enforce the ban imposed vide notification dated 13/04/2016, as order by the Hon?ble Supreme Court of India,? said an order dated Jan 10, 2017 by Deputy Commissioner, Department of Food Safety, Delhi government.
Delhi?s Food Safety Commissioner had issued a notification on April 13, 2016 banning ?manufacture, storage, distribution or sale of all forms of tobacco products for chewing for one year.?
?In Delhi alone there are 30 lakh tobacco users. Forty per cent of them will die untimely deaths. Nearly 10,000 deaths every year are due to tobacco consumption in Delhi,? said Dr. Pankaj Chaturvedi, Professor of Surgical Oncology, Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai. ?There are more than 5 million children in India, who are addicted to tobacco.?
Tobacco industry has been instrumental in spreading the tobacco epidemic globally through aggressive marketing campaigns. It is the only industry that kills its 5.4 million loyal customers every year. In 2005, the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), the first treaty negotiated under the auspices of the WHO, came into force.� Article 13 of FCTC suggests a comprehensive advertising ban, within five years of entry into force of FCTC for each party.
Only 42 countries, representing 19% of the world’s population, meet the best practice for pictorial warnings, which includes the warnings in the local language and cover an average of at least half of the front and back of cigarette packs. Most of these countries are low- or middle-income countries.
Despite existing prohibition laws, tobacco industry circumvents the laws to promote their products by employing innovative and at times, covert marketing strategies. Indirect or surrogate tobacco advertising such as dark advertising, brand stretching, corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, promotion through films and new media such as internet, discounts or free-gift offers, distribution of free samples, sale of tobacco products in the form of children’s sweets/toys, etc. gained momentum with increasing pressure on tobacco industry.
