Larger pictorial warning - tobacco products - Fusion - WeRIndia

Now, tobacco growers should think twice before they grow the crop. The same is the situation for tobacco companies as well. Since the growing usage of tobacco products in the country is leading to several life threatening diseases like cancer, government made it mandatory to display a larger pictorial warning on the packs.

The display size on the packs is now more than doubled to what it was previously, and this came into effect from yesterday. Government made notifications on graphic health warnings and issued some norms.

The new norms that are set for selling tobacco products came into force with effect from April 1.  As per these norms, all packs that sell cigarettes and other tobacco products should have at least 85 percent of the display area of the pack assigned to the warning. In other words, it is mandatory to display the pictorial warning on the packs that sell tobacco products in addition to the text warning.

So far, the norms that require 40 percent of pictorial warning on the packs of cigarettes and other tobacco products. But, government changed the requirements and the notification regarding this matter was made in September last year. The notification stated that the new norms will be effective from April 1 2016 i.e. from yesterday onwards.

Many tobacco companies opposed this. Even the parliamentary committee determined that display of 85 percent of pictorial warning is a bit too extreme and suggested for a 50 percent warning. Tobacco growers requested the Prime Minister to bring the norms for displaying health warnings on tobacco products to be matched with other tobacco-growing countries.

They are claiming that several countries including the US, China and Japan requirement of displaying the text only and they do not have any pictorial warnings on the packets of tobacco products. But, a commitment has been made by the union health ministry on March 28 to the Rajasthan High Court that from April 1, all tobacco products will need to have large picture based warnings about the damage their usage can cause. However, the implementation of notification came into force as per specified date.

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