Pictorial Health Warning on a Cigarette Pack would save Lives
Every year in Pakistan die 100,000 people because of smoking and over half of the adults become addicted in one form or the other.
A senior official in Pakistan’s health ministry, said: “Across the globe, nearly 5 million people died of tobacco-related diseases in 2008, which is more than tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and malaria combined.”
According to a lot of studies, the usage of tobacco worldwide killed around 100 million people in the 20th century and if the current trend continues, there will be up to 1 billion deaths in the 21st century.
Pakistan after approval of Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) published the Prohibition of Smoking and Non-smokers Health Ordinance in 2002 but the new low has not yet been effectively implemented for tobacco control.
The Pakistani government on September 6, 2008 issued an order containing guidelines for the establishment of designated smoking areas. Nevertheless, no other decision of the health ministry had faced as much media criticism as it.
The official declared that the health managers had announced immediate rollback of the controversial order and making the printing of pictorial health warnings on cigarette packets and with effect from Jan. 1, 2010.
The government’s move was laudable despite pressure by the Tobacco Industry that was simply time-gaining tactics.
However, the announcement was not enough and the government should take some steps for its realization.
This is the best practice for a country like Pakistan to print pictorial health warnings on cigarette packets where literacy rate is very low, so people need to be warned of the health risks of smoking through graphic representations.
The tobacco industry, however, has a lot of influence and is hampering complete tobacco control reforms as suggested under FCTC.
The health experts working against the tobacco use believe that the tobacco industry is out to impede the government’s decision on fresh pictorial health warnings.
They said that the tobacco companies in other countries can and have implemented picture warning requirements in as short as six months after notifications. For example, Uruguay, Singapore, Brazil and Canada are some of these countries.
