India: Now Your Cigarette Packet Will Tell You What''s Inside

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has proposed to make it mandatory for players to disclose the amount of nicotine and tar; two crucial ingredients that go into the making of cigarettes on packs.

 

The development is significant as companies in India have been resisting the move for some time now.
 
Nicotine is what drives a smoker to go back for a fag repeatedly owing to its addictive nature. Tar, on the other hand, is a carcinogen. Health industry experts say that the amount of nicotine and tar in Indian cigarettes is above the global permissible level of 1 milligram and 10 milligram per stick. Indian cigarettes contain about 13-14 milligram of tar and 1.3 to 1.8 milligram of nicotine in them.
 
India ranks second with a total of 274.9 million tobacco users in the world after China, which has 300.8 million, according to a study by the Lancet, a medical journal, released last year. While the study did not indicate the number of smokers in India or China, it did say that almost 34 per cent Indians above the age of 15 either smoke or chew tobacco. Enditem