Activists fear delay in displaying pictorial warnings on tobacco packages

Anti-tobacco lobbyists in Bangladesh fear that there may be a delay in implementing the mandatory display of pictorial warnings on tobacco packs.

The deadline for starting the display is Mar 19 this year.

The lobbyists say that the tobacco industry is doing its utmost to delay the display by creating snags at the health ministry.

High taxation and graphic pictorial warnings have been found to be very effective measures to deter smoking and reduce tobacco sales.

In a new law, the Bangladesh government made it mandatory for tobacco companies to print graphic pictorial warnings covering the upper half of each tobacco pack.

The provision is expected to come into effect on Mar 19, three years after the law was enacted.

But the tobacco industry, in violation of WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), wrote to the health ministry to make changes in the provision. bdnews24.com has a copy of their letter.

Instead of printing the images on the upper part of the pack as stipulated in the provision, tobacco companies want to print the warning pictures in the lower part of the pack where they attract less attention.

Package warnings are recognised worldwide as a highly cost-effective means of increasing awareness of the detrimental effects of tobacco, and of reducing its usage.

At a workshop on Tuesday, ABM Zubair, the executive director of an anti-tobacco group named 'Progga', said that the tobacco industry is lobbying hard to delay the printing of the pictorial warnings, under pretexts which he said were “misleading”.

 “They have done it in every country that introduced pictorial warnings,” he said at the workshop that was jointly organised by Progga and the Anti-Tobacco Media Alliance (ATMA).

ATMA, a group of 350 journalists, asked anti-tobacco campaigners to continue a “vigorous movement” until the Mar 19 deadline, and to submit a memorandum to the health ministry to push them into implementing the provision on time.

International guidelines under the FCTC 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 the back of packages”.

Bangladesh is one of many countries to have ratified the FCTC.

Graphic pictures on tobacco packages are highly effective in discouraging smoking.

Singapore introduced pictorial warnings on tobacco products in 2004, and in a survey a few months later, they found that consumption had reduced by 28 percent.

“The tobacco industry knows this very well, and that is why they resort to various tricks worldwide to prevent governments from implementing it."

 “In some places they even sue the government. But they never win if the government is strict."

At the workshop, Muhammad Ruhul Quddus, a joint secretary in the health ministry and the coordinator of the National Tobacco Control Cell, said that the ministry is determined to implement the mandatory statutory warning on all tobacco packs from Mar 19.

“We also want our ministry to remain firm in their decision,” ABM Zubair said.

Canada first introduced pictorial health warnings on tobacco packages in 2001.

In Nepal, tobacco companies have to cover 90 percent of the packs with graphic warnings, while in India they will have to use 85 percent of the package surface from April onwards.

Pakistan has also decided to implement graphical warnings covering 70 percent of the packs.

“The Control Cell has already sent the images to the tobacco companies. These companies are required to have them printed from Mar 19."

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