Health minister advised to be strict to counter tobacco industry tricks

Campaigners have urged the health minister to be “strict” about implementing the pictorial health warning on tobacco packs.

The government, in the new law, introduced a provision of printing a pictorial warning covering the upper half of the tobacco packs.

The provision is expected to come into effect on March 19.

But the tobacco industry group, in violation of the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) wrote to the health ministry to make changes in the provision.

They want to print the warning pictures in the lower part of the packs so that they draw less attention of the smokers.

Globally, package warnings are recognised as a highly cost-effective means to increase awareness of the health effects of tobacco, and to reduce its use.

International guidelines under the FCTC that Bangladesh has ratified recommend that “warnings should be as large as is achievable, should include a rotating series of graphic pictures and should be on both the front and back of packages”.

Bangladesh Anti-Tobacco Alliance, National Anti Tuberculosis Association (NATAB), and Work for Better Bangladesh jointly at a press briefing on Wednesday in Dhaka urged the health minister to stay put in its position.

They pointed out that according to the FCTC treaty, governments cannot allow tobacco industries to discuss on issues related to usage-control laws.

Estimates suggest 57,000 people die of tobacco-related illness in a year while nearly 300,000 suffer disabilities in Bangladesh, a country where more than 43 percent of the people aged 15 and above consume tobacco in some form.

NATAB Senior Vice-President Mozaffar Hossain Paltu said it was “an international as well as national commitment of the government” to implement proper pictorial warning.

“The government must be aware of the tobacco industry tricks,” he said.

Tobacco industries apply different types of tricks in different countries when it comes to implementing pictorial health warnings.

In many places they even sued the governments. Currently at least 80 countries put the pictorial pack warning into practice.

Bangladesh’s neighbouring country Nepal implemented warnings on 90 percent of the packs.