PRES RELEASE

PRESS RELEASE
Cancer patients, families affected by tobacco file petitions across the country as pack warnings notification is ignored by tobacco industry
[Lucknow– December 1, 2008]

Cancer patients and their families filed at least seven cases in different district and high court today in anticipation of the implementation of the notification of graphic health warning on all tobacco products.
Earlier last week, tobacco control advocates in India, based on media reports and through Government sources found out that the Group of Ministers were working to delay implementation of the notification yet again. The implementation of pictorial health warnings on tobacco product packages was to come in to effect from November 30, 2008.
Since no notification has been issued by the Government as of November 30, concerned citizens across the country have filed. But there plea for justice failed when the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare sprung up a notification, dated November 28, 2008, reversing the directive to implement pack warnings.

The GOM has time and again deferred implementation of pack warnings on tobacco packages (see timeline). “The government is failing from performing its important duty to provide essential information to make Indian consumers aware of the effects of tobacco, particularly to the vulnerable poor and the illiterate”, says Aloke Gupta of Sonebhadra, whose father suffers from lung cancer, possibly caused by his excessive smoking of bidis and cigarettes.

“As a doctor I see several cases of illiterate people who do not know the perils of tobacco use. Pictorial warnings would have proved to be good deterrent for those taking up tobacco use and encourage users to quit. These were already diluted and make ineffective, and now they are taken off altogether. Politics has yet again trumped public health”, says Dr. Sanjay Kumar Rai, a doctor in Varanasi and petitioner whose petition was rejected this morning.

Timeline
5th July 2006 the pictorial warnings were notified to come into force on 1st February 2007
24th January 2007 delayed to come into force from 1st June 2007
31st May 2007 delayed to 1st October 2007
25th September 2007 the Act is amended to do away with the skull and cross bones
29th September 2007 new pack warnings
1st October 2007 notified to come into force from 1st December 2007
16th November 2007 the government only now notifies the select Sections from the Tobacco Control Act to take effect
30th November 2007 delayed to 13th December 2007
19th December 2007 delayed to 17th March 2008
15th March 2008 new pack warnings notified without any date of coming into force
28th August 2008 announce 30th November as date of implementation
22nd November GoM again defers the warnings
28th November delayed to 31st May 2009. Warnings now will be in two languages, pictorial warnings in abeyance

The tobacco industry continues to perpetuate the myth that pack warnings and other tobacco control initiatives will make the government lose revenues and get poor and marginal communities would lose employment that the tobacco industry offers.

In the meantime, young people continue to get lured to tobacco products and are not fully aware of the serious health implications. “There is little political will to implement public health initiatives. Tobacco industry has made deep inroad into the Government. By using employment and revenue argument to protect tobacco industry, the Government is falling to perverse arguments of the industry. This patronage of the Government is insensitive and any efforts by civil society are proving to be ineffective to reign in the use of tobacco” says says Ashutosh Sing of the Indian Media Centre for Journalists, a Lucknow based organisation that has been working towards creating awareness on the harms of tobacco use.

“Overall, 14.7 percent of Indian students use tobacco. The number of new users of tobacco from February 1, 2007 to May 31, 2009 (the supposed date when pack warning will be notified) will be in a couple of millions”, according to a public health scientist who wishes to remain unnamed.

Basic facts about tobacco and health
= Tobacco causes lung disease, cancer, heart disease, low birth weight and increased infant death as well as other problems in those exposed.
= More than 5 million people are killed by tobacco each year – more than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. In this century, unless urgent action is taken, tobacco could kill more than 1 billion people.
= Tobacco kills 50 to 75 percent of its users and on average “15 years prematurely”.
= Smoking causes 10% of the 10 million (1 crore) deaths per year from all causes. 70% of smoking deaths are in middle age (30-69): 700,000 (7 lakh); 600,000 men and 100,000 women 1 in 5 of all adult male deaths and 1 in 20 of all adult female deaths in middle age
= Over 1/2 of smoking deaths are in illiterate adults India's toll of tobacco-related deaths is expected to rise from about 9,00,000 annually to 930,000 by the year 2010, and bidis to exceed 1 million annually by 2013 currently account. For 77 percent of the market for smoked tobacco. Studies indicate that bidi smokers are five to six times more likely to develop lung cancer than non-smokers. Pack warnings therefore become essential to inform the illiterate and the young who are about to take up the habit.
= Medical costs from smoking impoverish several million people in India. The annual cost in India for treating Tobacco related cancers, coronary artery disease and chronic obstructive lung disease is conservatively estimated at INR 27,761 Crore (USD 6.5 billion)

About pack warnings
= The effectiveness of pack warnings is well established by rigorous scientific studies globally and endorsed by the World Health Organisation (WHO)
= Despite the tobacco industry’s and the GoM’s dire predictions and their gullibility, numerous independent studies have shown that pack warnings do not have a negative economic impact or impact employment of people. The effects are very log term and the Government (in particular Ministry of Commerce) as part of global and national commitments has to works towards alternative plans for employment and livelihood to those dependent on tobacco cultivation and industry.