New tobacco curbs coming: Why clobber cigarettes when they're only 15% of problem?

The Union health ministry, headed by Harsh Vardhan, is said to be considering new curbs to get people to chuck the weed - cigarette smoking. Among the things it wants to ban are the following: point-of-sale advertising (ie, ads near pan shops, where most cigarettes are sold), cigarette branding (no more Wills or Panama, just plain wrapping), smoking by people under the age of 25 (currently under 18). It also wants to place warnings about cigarette smoking on both sides of the pack.

The Economic Times reports that once the health ministry finishes its schmoozing with “experts”, it could call for changes in the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act 2003 (COTPA) to implement its new anti-tobacco laws.

The intentions may be laudable, but some of the suggestions are unimplementable while others are of doubtful use. The health ministry needs a better plan that goes beyond bans.

Higher age limit: Consider the plan to raise the minimum age of smoking from 18 to 25. Is this possible to implement this in a country of 1.25 billion, where there are 631 million people under the age of 25 - half the population? Raising the age-ban from 18 to 25 means increasing the population under the ban by another 161 million. Is it feasible to police so many more people when we don’t know whether the previous under-18 ban has worked or not? Bringing new laws without evaluating the efficacy of previous ones makes no sense. We need detailed studies on the efficacy of bans before we move ahead on this law.

Making the warnings bolder on cigarette packs: The plan to put bolder and bigger warnings on both sides of the cigarette pack is presumably to make it doubly sure that smokers read them. But this presumes that smokers don’t know of the risks. In fact, studies elsewhere have shown that making warnings bolder and starker (with gory pictures of lungs stuffed with tar, etc) actually increases smokers’ urge to smoke. The anxiety involved apparently drives them to smoke more and ignore the warnings (Read here ). This action may thus not do much to help reduce smoking.

Point-of-sale ad bans: Once again, smokers do not buy cigarettes after reading the ads next to pan shops. They come to buy because they want to buy cigarettes. The disappearance of point-of-sale ads is not going to do much to deter smokers, or make them think smoking isn’t cool. That needs a different kind of communication exercise with smokers.

Branding ban: A ban on printing colourful cigarette packs may work up to a point, for attractive packaging and branding often enhance the value for cigarette buyers. But one cannot be sure even this will work to the extent one imagines. After all, if you ban the use of, say, ITC’s Wills brand name, and all you get is a white paper packet with ‘Cigarettes’ written on it, there could be two consequences: it may get tougher to distinguish between mild cigarettes and stronger ones, between high nicotine ones and low ones; and companies may merely learn new ways of branding white packs (for example, with different qualities of paper, glossier ones, or whatever). They may even go for surrogate advertising - like they do for alcoholic drinks. A brand ban may ultimately not work, and it may also be open to court challenges since companies could say this destroys brand value they built over decades. In any case, Wills is now an apparel brand - so surrogate advertising is an option.

Why only cigarettes? The concern with cigarettes and the damage they do to health is laudable, but cigarettes are not India’s biggest tobacco threats. Cigarettes represent only 15 percent of tobacco consumption, with bidis, chewing tobacco and khaini accounting for the other 85 percent. Any attempt to deal with cigarettes without thinking of bidis and chewing tobacco - which are mainstays of the poor - will mean ignoring 85 percent of the health risks to the country.

India has around 275 million smokers, but the bulk of them are bidi smokers. Indians buy around 100 billion cigarette sticks a year, but bidis are bought in the range of 750 billion to 1.2 trillion sticks. If we assume cigarette smokers to be better off people, it means the health risks to the poor are being ignored just because it is easier to go after the visible parts of the industry. This is like thieves who are easier to catch, and ignoring those who are tougher to nail. Moreover, cigarette smoking in plateauing, but that may not be the case with bidis.

The health ministry’s new plans are a cop-out, not a impactful initiative. Maybe it is time to think beyond bans.

(PS: I am a non-smoker and have no axe to grind in this story)