A lot can be said about the graphic warnings on cigarette packs that have started appearing to discourage smokers. Maybe a pat on the governments back followed by a sharp kick in the derriere would be considered fair payback for scaring the daylights out of a pack-a-day smoker just going about his business. Yet, there it was at a luncheon in the deepest darkest Punjab that our host pointed out the new images and in return got ones with the latest rendition of a startled guppy fish at feeding time. You may have been shocked too if the picture you thought was of a desert jeep rally was actually that of mouth cancer, but one may be forgiven for not scrutinizing the pack more closely and noticing the subtle difference. And besides, who really looks at the pack anyways?
Thankfully, now it will not be startling to see the Governments next centrefold of the season whether it is a surrealist composition showing rugged charcoal lungs topped with alpine phlegm, or perhaps a more sobering clogged artery or a gangrenous foot. Far more interesting is what measures like graphic warnings mean for the wider portfolio of products known to have harmful effects on the health of humans, and whether the government has the courage or audacity to see these policies through to their logical conclusion. Now that the door is wide open, the government may turn its attention to ensuring that other industrial sectors follow suit. So if the sugar sector resists printing pictures of the quintessentially obese Augustus Gloop on its products, the government may as well encumber another industry. As science continues to discover new health hazards, perhaps the day is not far off when mobile phones are sold with the latest images of radiation-induced tumours, or vehicles advertised along side grisly images of fatalities caused by car accidents. Even firearms could be sold with images of gun-related crimes. This may seem like taking things too far, but it is only a matter of time for science (or our sarkaar) to throw us a new curve ball which reinvigorates the debate on public health and safety.
While we all yearn for concrete efforts to improve public health in Pakistan, we are instead treated to a festival of gore that can only be described as ineffective. Considering that it is already too late if one can only see the picture once the purchased pack is in hand, it may have been more helpful to target the would-be smokers by displaying graphical images at places not normally associated with tobacco products. Countries with poor literacy rates like Pakistan do not normally have the resources for public health education, so graphic warnings such as these are usually the most cost-effective communication medium available to convince people to quit smoking. However, such initiatives fail to protect the public interest for the wider community. If the government had chosen public places, parks, cinemas or billboards to display the images, this would have had a far wider impact than fickle attempts to scare hardcore smokers. The message, it seems, goes to only those members of the public who actually fork out money to the tobacco industry. This is hardly a public service, and hardly a message. Very little thought seems to have been given to alternative information that would be helpful to dissuade smokers. Most importantly, the government seems uninterested in having the tobacco industry print tar and nicotine content on the packs, evidencing a lack of oversight and confounded priorities at the most fundamental level.
While the nation waits for the next time the government jumps on the health and safety bandwagon, it would help to put things in perspective and question the efficacy of such measures.
The best way forward would be to scale up visibility of the images so that people do not necessarily have to make a purchase before the warning is communicated to them. Leveraging mass communication tools to discourage would-be smokers would have a wider impact on society and would go a long way in protecting the public interest compared to directly targeting those who are already more or less hooked on cancer sticks. Finally, the appearance of tar and nicotine content on cigarette packs would go a long way in communicating the health impacts of smoking and would even give us a quantitative insight to the damage that is done. Without a holistic objective that curtails the urge to smoke, simply imposing new regulatory requirements on industry would only make business processes more cumbersome and eat into the margins of a troubled private sector.
The writer is a consultant on public policy.