Why a scorpion? The pictorial warning of the dangers of cancer thats currently on chewing tobacco,or gutka,pouches isnt even a crab,which at least has the advantage of being associated with cancer by the more zodiac-minded among us. (Who,one presumes,must be warned pictorially that scorpio,not cancer,kills.) And the black insect silhouette,while icky,doesnt in any way suggest to a casual user of chewing tobacco the magnitude of the threat she faces from mouth cancer which causes four out of every 10 deaths from cancer in India. Nor does the fuzzy X-ray of a diseased lung thats on cigarette packets at the moment manage to convey to a smoker luxuriating in her smelly habit the hacking,painful awfulness of emphysema or lung cancer. Which is why the next iteration of the pictorial warning,of a mouth thats cancerous visibly diseased and rotting is a much better idea. The pictorial warnings were the product of the Supreme Court stepping in to mandate them; they were first introduced on May 31 last year to universal indifference. It is doubtful that a single smoker could have looked at the bad photocopy of an X-rayed lung thats on cigarette packets and had her resolve to give up strengthened. No: that needs something much more visually stark; and something that can affect first-time smokers,usually young enough to feel immortal so something that carries with it not just a reminder of mortality but of massive amounts of social unpleasantness as well. A large picture of a mouth with yellowed smokers teeth and blackened,hideous gums will certainly help with that. Warnings need to be graphic,colourful and shocking. Of course,the decision of whether to smoke or not needs to be left to an individual. But it is now understood that the choice isnt fairly presented unless the individual choosing has access to a visceral sense of what smoking or chewing tobacco can do to her lungs or her mouth. Thats what these new warning pictures will do. In a country where more than 2000 people die every day of tobacco-related cancers,thats overdue.
