Health minister firm as tobacco industry resorts to new tricks

Health Minister Mohammed Nasim has vowed to introduce pictorial health warnings on “the upper half” of the tobacco packs on time as industries have resorted to a new trick ahead of the Mar 19 deadline.

Bangladesh set the deadline last year, but industries were lobbying hard to delay the implementation of the graphic health warning covering the upper 50 percent of the front and rear sides of the packets.

The companies were also pushing the government to allow them to print the warning pictures in the lower part of the pack rather than in the upper part so that they would draw less attention.

As the government has not paid heed to their demand so far, the cigarette manufactures on Saturday started distributing leaflets of the future packs – as they would like to see them -- with the graphic warning in the lower part. 

Lawmakers, anti-tobacco activists, and journalists reacted to those leaflets at a programme on Saturday in the presence of the health minister. 

“We must hit the production, consumption and marketing of tobacco,” former law minister Abdul Matin Khasru said. 

An anti-tuberculosis campaigner Mozaffar Hossain Paltu said the companies broke the law by distributing those leaflets.

He urged the health minister to ask the law enforcing department of all districts to stop the distribution.

Farida Akhtar, who leads an anti-tobacco women’s alliance, said: “This (leaflets) proves the arrogance of the tobacco industry”. 

“They think they have the money and power to thwart the implementation of the law. The government must be firm about its decision,” she said. 

The health minister also admitted being pressured by the industries. He said, “if you (anti-tobacco activists) visit me in the morning, the industries will come in the afternoon”. 

However, the health ministry cannot discuss tobacco control issues with the industries as per the WHO’s convention on tobacco control, FCTC, that Bangladesh ratified. 

Only the finance ministry can discuss revenue issues, but the discussion must be open and transparent, according to the convention. 

The health minister also lamented that he alone cannot fight against the menace. 

“What if my decision is vetoed by the law ministry? What if the commerce ministry decides to continue the business? We must sit together,” he said, asking the anti-tobacco groups to organise an event where all relevant ministers can come together.

The graphic health warning must cover the upper 50 percent of the front and rear sides of the packets.

At least 80 countries have so far implemented pictorial health warnings, a cost-effective way of preventing tobacco use in the world including neighbouring India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.

Rob Cunningham, Senior Policy Analyst of the Canadian Cancer Society, recently told bdnews24.com that the Bangladesh government must ignore the “ridiculous” argument of the tobacco industries and implement pictorial health warnings in time to reduce smoking.

He also said Bangladesh had fallen behind the international trend and a “new 50 percent pictorial warning would be a great advancement with a tremendous impact”.

Doctors’ anti-tobacco group United Forum Against Tobacco (UFAT), Progga, Anti-tobacco Media Alliance jointly organised Saturday’s programme in Dhaka with the support of US-based Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids (CTFK).

They also hailed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s declaration to eradicate the use of tobacco by 2040, as she recently said tobacco use can stand in the way of sustainable development (SDGs). 

Tobacco control is one of the 169 targets of the SDGs to prevent non-communicable diseases such as cancer and heart diseases.

Estimates suggest that 95, 000 people die of tobacco-related illnesses every year in Bangladesh, a country where nearly 45 percent of the population aged 15 and above consume tobacco in some form.