Put Dramatic Pictorial Warnings on 85% of Cigarette Packs

It is the most helpless feeling in the world when you see hope defeated from the face of a young person, when a smile becomes a struggle and life is nothing more than a fear of death. That’s not a rare sight for me. And it’s mind-numbing to think that in this century alone Tobacco will kill ONE BILLION people in the world and all these deaths are completely preventable. The problem is addiction. Only 2% Indians are able to kick the habit, mostly after being diagnosed with a fatal illness.

Picture Speaks a Thousand Words

Big Tobacco is smart. They target our teens. Look around the schools. 80% of those innocent looking shops near schools are selling cigarettes. It shifts from gums, chocolates and bam! Cigarettes.

Signs, posters and displays are known to impact new smokers and our kids are seeing it.

Tobacco companies are spending billions of dollars into tobacco marketing. For one simple reason, it works.

Young people are almost twice as likely to remember tobacco marketing. The more shops sell cigarettes near schools, the more likely kids are to smoke. On an average in India, the first brush with Tobacco comes by the age of 14-16 years.

There are 5 million young smokers in India.

Nearly ONE THIRD of them will die prematurely.

That is precisely why I am advocating for 85% of the Cigarette pack to be covered with stark images. Real images.

This is a REAL picture. It gets far gory than this. Will you take a drag after seeing the face affected by cancer and tumours?

Pictorial Warnings

India is ranked at the 114th position in 198 countries when it comes to statutory warnings on cigarette packs. Less than 40% of the cigarette packs are covered with warnings. SriLanka and Nepal have a higher percentage of warnings than us. Even Big Tobacco agrees graphic warnings help. No wonder they’re using every trick in the book to glamorise their products rather than educate consumers against its lethal potential.

These stark pictures won’t stop everyone from smoking. But it will give millions of kids one less reason to start.

10 lakh Indians die every year because of tobacco consumption.

Sign a petition here to increase the pictorial warnings and save our kids.

(Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi, senior Cancer Surgeon from India’s premier Tata Memorial Hospital, is also a leading Anti-Tobacco activist. He played a crucial role in getting a complete ban on Gutkha in Maharashtra. Voice of Tobacco Victims, a platform of tobacco induced oral cancer victims, is his brainchild. He wants the government to wake up from it’s slumber and end the tobacco menace)