The World Health Organisation (WHO) has strongly urged the ministry of national health services, regulation and coordination to comprehensively ban all tobacco marketing campaigns in Pakistan.
It has also urged the ministry of health to reject all claims made by tobacco industry to freely advertise their lethal product which causes enormous deaths, diseases, and disabilities all over Pakistan.
This comes in the wake of a ludicrous petition filed by Philip Morris International (PMI) in the Sindh High Court which was heard the other day. The petition out rightly demands quashing restrictions on tobacco marketing in Pakistan. This is a ridiculous demand considering that Pakistan is a signatory to WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).
The case was scheduled to be heard yesterday in the Sindh High Court. During the hearing, Philip Morris Pakistan argued for its right to freely advertise tobacco products in the interest of its profits and returns on previous investments.
While it contended that tobacco promotion had been banned completely in Pakistan, the honourable judge stated that it was not in fact banned completely and indoor promotion was still allowed, leaving the lawyers without an answer.
The representative of government of Pakistan and the ministry of national health services, regulation and coordination stated that Pakistan was a signatory of the FCTC and reversing the regulations would make it the only country where such tobacco advertisement freedoms were allowed.
Consequently, the court agreed to give time to PMI to prepare counter arguments to the government’s response and set the next date of hearing on the June 6, 2014. The PMI also contended that the government should be barred from issuing show cause notices to them till then, to which the government’s lawyers agreed; concluding with the honourable judges instructing that no new advertisement would be placed by the PMI till any decision was taken.
The FCTC is the first international treaty negotiated under the auspices of the WHO. The convention was developed in response to the globalization of the tobacco epidemic. The prime necessity all over the world is to protect all from health hazards, deaths, diseases, and disabilities.