India: Blanket Ban Sought on Chewable Tobacco Products

Source from:  Deccan Herald 11/18/2013

As much as 28.2 per cent adults use tobacco in some form or another in Karnataka.

Speaking at an event in the City on Sunday, Dr U S Vishal Rao, head and neck cancer surgeon and director, Cancer Prevention Project, Institute of Public Health said that India has one of the highest rates of mouth cancer in the world, the primary cause being increasing use of chewable tobacco products. "The stigma associated with the use of chewable tobacco is less and it is also not as conspicuous as smoking. It's not just the men, but many women and children also tend to use these products rather than smoking," he added. 

Dr Rao said nearly 22.7 per cent men and 16 per cent women use smokeless/chewable tobacco in Karnataka.

He said chewable tobacco products are a major cause of mouth cancers. The government banned gutka with the intention of saving millions of lives, but the availability of the same product in different forms is defeating the very purpose of the ban. A blanket ban on all chewable tobacco products can tackle this issue and would be easier to enforce, he added.

Dr Upendra Bhojani, Faculty Institute of Public Health, said soon after the ban, gutka products started to flood the market in two separate sachets, which when mixed constitute gutkha. He said the tobacco industry has always tried to dilute or subvert attempts to regulate their products. Enditem