GUWAHATI, Jan 14 � The tobacco lobby is deliberately creating confusion to derail the process of implementation of the new pictorial health warning on tobacco products, and this is not a new ploy, said Ruchira Neog, Executive Secretary, Voluntary Health Association of Assam (VHAA).
�Invariably, whenever the new picture warnings are notified and a specific date is given for implementation, the tobacco industry comes up with some loophole or the other. This time too, more than a month has passed since the warnings have come into effect; however most of the leading brands have not printed the new pictures, as if waiting for the government to withdraw the warnings under the pretext that the pictures bear a resemblance to footballer John Terry�, Neog said in a press note to the media.
All tobacco product packages in India should have carried the new, harsher pictorial warnings depicting of cancer-affected lungs and mouth for smoking and smokeless forms of tobacco, with effect from December 1, 2011 as per the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare notification dated 27.05.2011. But the tobacco lobby is making attempts to hinder the implementation of the new pictorial health warnings, Neog added.
