On cigarette packs, size of the warning matters
Tobacco use leads to 100,000 deaths every year in the country
In a setback to the country’s $11 billion tobacco industry, the Supreme Court has put on hold a lower court’s order that overturned rules demanding larger health warnings on cigarette and bidi packages. Last month, the Karnataka High Court had struck down a central government rule mandating that 85% of a tobacco packet’s surface be covered in health warnings, up from 20% earlier. The decision comes as a relief for health advocates and the Union health ministry who say bigger health warnings deter tobacco consumption.
Introduced in April, 2016, large pictorial warnings were just one part of a combination of tobacco-control measures – which included raising taxes and banning the advertising of tobacco, smoking in public spaces and sale to minors — introduced in the country over the past decade. Protesting the health warning measures, the cigarette industry briefly shut its factories in 2016. A government survey conducted by the Union Ministry of Health last year said 62% of cigarette smokers and 52% of bidi smokers had been compelled to think about quitting because of large warning labels on both sides of the packets
Tobacco use is the second largest cause of early death and chronic diseases worldwide. In India, it causes 100,000 deaths every year, leading to one in 20 deaths in women and one in five deaths in men, according to the Global Burden of Disease study published in The Lancet in 2015. Besides being oblivious to the risks associated with tobacco use, a majority of consumers of bidi and chewing tobacco, from economically weaker sections, are not aware of anti-tobacco campaigns. Larger images on both sides of the packet can be an effective weapon to communicate health risks to these people, and induce them to quit. Conversely, reducing the size of warnings will be a retrograde step in the fight against health hazards caused by tobacco. In the case of pictorial warnings on cigarette packs, what you see is what you may get.