Sri Lanka Passes Law on Graphical Tobacco Warnings

Source from:  Lanka Business Online  02/20/2014

Sri Lanka's parliament has passed a law on pictorial health warnings on tobacco packs, after a British American Tobacco unit in the island went to court against an earlier health ministry regulation.

The state information office said parliament unanimously passed the law requiring pictorial health warnings to cover 80 percent of cigarette packs Wednesday.

Similar laws are in effect in several other countries.

The office of the Surgeon General of the United States, which in 1964 released the first landmark report against the deadly health risks of tobacco said in January this year that modern cigarettes were even more dangerous.

"How cigarettes are made and the chemicals they contain have changed over the years, and some of those changes may be a factor in higher lung cancer risks," acting Surgeon General Boris Lushniak said.

In addition to lung cancer, active smoking can cause a common form of blindness called age-related macular degeneration, as well as diabetes, colorectal cancer and liver cancer, the 2014 report said.

Smoking can also cause tuberculosis, erectile dysfunction, facial clefts in infants, ectopic pregnancy, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammation, impaired immune function, and worsens the outlook for cancer patients and survivors.

Those who do not smoke but are exposed to second-hand smoke face an increased risk of stroke, said the report.

In Sri Lanka in addition to Ceylon Tobacco Company, there is a thriving small and medium sector industry making 'beedie' which do not have filters and 'white beedie' which are much cheaper than the highly taxed tobacco.

Tobacco is a key source of state revenues. Enditem