Cigarette Package Health Warnings: International Status Report Released

Cigarette Package Health Warnings: International Status Report released in the second week of November ranked India at 123rd Position in the list of 198 countries surveyed on fulfillment of picture based health warnings and warning size issued on the Cigarette Packets.  

The released report has ranked the countries on the success that they achieved in issuing pictorial health warnings on tobacco packets. Pictorial Health Warnings is considered to be the proven strategy to discourage people from chewing or smoking tobacco.

India signed and ratified an International Treaty under the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and as per the treaty the signing party is responsible for carrying health warnings on the packets of all type of tobacco product with a description of its harmful effect on human. The issued warning should include a pictorial warning and cover about 50 percent of the principle display area but at no instance less than 30 percent of the display area.

The situation of India as per a NGO that works on tobacco control Voluntary Health Association of India is regretful because of its position at 123rd place in the ranking. At the time of negotiations for issue of picture-based health warnings on the packets of tobacco products, in the year 2003, India was at forefront, but its positioning in the released report was a situation of regret. India in the year 2004 approved the WHO-FCTC that makes the Government committed towards implementation of pictorial warnings related to health on tobacco products of all types. As per Article 11 of FCTC the pictorial health warnings are treated as an effective and proven strategy of reducing the demand of tobacco.

A survey report published in the year 2006 by the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) about 14.1 percent children, who are in the age group of 13 to 15 years are tobacco users in one or the other form and out of this recorded population 11.9 percent use tobacco products and the rest 4.2 percent smoke cigarettes.   

Another report published in 2009-10 by the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) India described that about 34.6 percent of the adults, who are 15 plus years in age use tobacco in India. A total population of about 206 million people that accounts to 25.9 percent use smokeless tobacco in the nation and of these 15 percent users are from urban society and 30.7 percent belong to rural India. Among the women tobacco users that constitutes to 20.3 percent, 18.4 percent use smokeless tobacco.

World Report

Australia was ranked at first position in the list of countries in the issued report as it recorded the largest warnings in the world.

About 63 countries and territories of the world that covers about 40 percent of the world’s population have been successful in issuing picture warning messages. The Picture Warning have been into stress by the FCTC because of its belief in the fact that a picture says thousand words and can easily convey the message to tobacco users in the low and middle income countries and high illiteracy rates.  It also considers the picture warnings as the cost effective measure to curb the use of tobacco even in countries with fewer resources to spread awareness.

Guidelines

The guideline issued by FCTC recommends that the pictorial warnings should be in a representation of the graphical picture in a rotating series on both the front and back side of the packages and it should be as large as it can be.