Writ plea against ‘weak’ tobacco warnings

The warnings on tobacco products are weak and convey no message, the Old Students Association of the P.G. College, Secunderabad, has alleged. The Association has filed a writ petition in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh challenging the inaction of the government in implementing the law and neglecting the health of citizens.
The pictorial warnings on tobacco products like cigarettes in other countries were very explicit and really sent the desired message to the smoker. After their introduction, the tobacco companies in those countries had reported a decline in sales, Association general secretary A Ramakrishna and Harinath Reddy said at an interaction on Sunday. “However, in our country the pictorial warnings on tobacco products are not only weak but also look like a piece of complicated art which no one understands,” they added.
The Central Government has framed the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling) Rules 2008, which mandate pictorial warnings on tobacco products in colour. But the warnings were being carried in black and white and looked like an image showing water flow between two rocks, they said.
Further, while the Rules required pictorial warnings on both sides of the packet, they were being printed only on one side. The Government made it mandatory to rotate the specified pictorial warnings every 12 months and even that was not being followed, they charged.
Strong pictorial warnings on tobacco products was an evidence-based measure to warn the users and thus empower the consumer, they explained and added that their nonimplementation amounted to violation of the right of an individual to healthy life, granted by Article 21 of the Constitution of India.