Govt of India's Pro-tobacco stance challenged in SC!!

Deferment of pictorial warnings on tobacco items challenged

Bombay News.Net
Monday 13th December, 2010 (IANS)

A petition challenging the government decision postponing the implementation of the new pictorial warnings on tobacco products by a year has been filed in the Supreme Court, an NGO said Monday.

Earlier, the notification of the new pictorial warnings was supposed to be implemented Dec 1 this year.

'An interim application has been filed by Health for Millions (HFM) Trust seeking that the government of India implement the notification dated May 17, 2010 immediately by ensuring that the tobacco products sold in the markets after December 1, 2010 have the new pictorial warnings affixed on them as described by the notification,' the trust said in a statement.

A member of the trust said: 'As per the 2008 Rules, the pictorial warnings have to be rotated every year or earlier as decided by the Union of India. The purpose being that the consumer does not get accustomed to seeing the same warnings as the warnings would then fail to have the dissuading effect'.

'The 2010 Rules notification says that tobacco packages will have a pictorial warning depicting a mouth affected by cancer with the warning 'Tobacco causes cancer'. However instead of bringing into force June 1, the government postponed it to December 1, 2010. Then on Dec 7, the cabinet took the decision to defer the pictorial warnings by a year,' the trust official added.

'The pictorial warnings have been deliberately delayed to unduly favour the tobacco industry for their products at the cost of the health of the consumers,' the official alleged.

Yours Healthily, AYUSHMANTRA

COTPA - Legislation

overview of COTPA

Fact Sheet on COTPA


Yours Healthily, AYUSHMANTRA

A new excuse to smoke | Deccan Chronicle | 2010-11-22

A new excuse to smoke | Deccan Chronicle | 2010-11-22

Seems like the tobacco bars have paid the news paper to write this article! It is included in the section Glam sham!!Clever!! How conveniently it misses out on mentioning about nicotine, tobacco or addiction. Shamefully, they also mention about the rates... For all the work that we do in discouraging the youngsters from taking up to substance abuse and addiction..one such irresponsible article can undo all the efforts!!

Guys let us all write to the editor Deccan Chronicle... Lets point out the glaring mistake in publishing such irresponsible articles.. Go! Ayushmantra!


Yours Healthily,AYUSHMANTRA

Gutkha

Yours Healthily,AYUSHMANTRA

Tobacco control legislaion

The Indian tobacco control legislation entitled, “Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003”, is a result of decades of consultations and development to assume the current form. Beginning with the Cigarettes (Regulation of Production, Supply and Distribution) Act which specified statutory health warnings on cigarettes in 1975, over the years, it has evolved and gradually developed as a complete, comprehensive Act encompassing key aspects of tobacco control, regulation and enforcement.
What is the scope COTPA 2003?
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The Act is applicable to all products containing tobacco in any form i.e. cigarettes, cigars, cheroots, bidis, gutka, pan masala (containing tobacco) khaini, mawa, mishri, snuff etc. as detailed in the Schedule to the Act.
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The Act extends to the whole of India including the state of Jammu and Kashmir..

Yours Healthily, AYUSHMANTRA