Death in a pouch

There is really no need to re-discover the causal link between chewing pan and cancer. As far back as 1902, a British doctor attached to the Madras General Hospital had established that tobacco chewing causes cancer. What is needed is to regulate, if not ban, the multi-crore gutkha industry, which has registered a dramatic increase in its presence through some skillful advertising, the use of celebrity endorsement and innovative packaging. Children are especially vulnerable to tobacco addiction and peddlers of gutkha have no compunctions about selling their products outside schools, resulting in 10- and 11-year-olds becoming addicts. There is, therefore, an urgent need to launch an effective outreach programme to drive home the dismal truths about tobacco consumption and at least some of the revenue the government earns from gutkha sales must be channelised for this purpose. For starters, packets should prominently carry the categorical message that consuming gutkha causes cancer.

Cancer is an extremely difficult and expensive disease to treat, something that a country like India can ill afford. The Indian Council of Medical Research has estimated the cost of treating tobacco-related diseases at Rs 25,000 crore, a figure that quite puts in the shade the excise earnings that the industry generates. These costs will only rise over the years. The World Health Organisation has estimated that tobacco will be responsible for 13.3 per cent of all deaths in India by the year 2020. As the world’s nations attempt to negotiate an international framework convention on tobacco control at Geneva, this is perhaps the right time to do some straight talking on gutkha back home.