LAHORE – Experts have urged a comprehensive ban on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship noting that isolated actions have little effect in reducing youth smoking.
“Comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising and promotion can result in a considerable reduction of tobacco consumption on a national level,” said University of Health Sciences (UHS) Vice Chancellor Prof Malik Hussain Mubashar, adding that where a complete ad ban was coupled with an intensive public information campaign on smoking, a reduction in tobacco consumption of up to 16 percent could be achieved.
He was addressing at a training workshop on ‘comprehensively banning Tobacco Advertising, Promotion and Sponsorship (TAPS)’ at UHS on Tuesday. The workshop was organized in collaboration with the World Health Organization and the Ministry of Health. A large number of doctors, journalists and representatives of civil society participated in the workshop.
UHS VC said the issue of tobacco use was related to mental health which leads to smoking and subsequently to substance abuse. He was of the view that tobacco companies were targeting young people by linking tobacco use with glamour, sex appeal and energy.
“A campaign of ‘spiritual hygiene’ may be launched in the society with targeted educational programmes for adolescent population in schools, colleges and universities,” he said, adding that a separate ‘ministry of healthy public policies’ be established to frame policies to safeguard and improve public health.
UHS VC said half measures were not enough and more was needed to be done, particularly to protect children. He urged parents who smoke not only to quit, but also to move their smoking outside their houses while trying to quit. “Make the home a smoke-free environment first,” he advised. WHO National Programme Officer Tobacco Control Shahzad Alam Khan said partial bans on tobacco advertising won’t work as the industry had innovative ways to promote tobacco.
“The tobacco industry undertakes much more ‘indirect’ advertising than other industries. It includes sponsorship of sports or cultural events, displays at points of sale, brand stretching; where tobacco brand names are printed on other objects such as caps, umbrellas, etc,” he informed and added that smoking scenes were becoming very common in TV serials and films. He further said that although there were restrictions on advertising, the tobacco industry had simply shifted its vast resources to another channel.
He urged a complete ban on all types of tobacco promotion so as to ‘break the tobacco marketing net’. Presenting a global picture, Shahzad said that tobacco killed 100 million people worldwide during the 20th century. By the year 2030, if the current trend goes unabated, it would kill over 800 million with 80 percent in developing countries such as Pakistani, he added. He said the situation in Pakistan could be gauged from the fact that 49.6 billion cigarette sticks were produced in 2002-03 and the production reached to 66.4 billion in 2006-07.
Women and youth were the prime target of tobacco industry. As a result, the ratio between young male and female tobacco users had reached to 2 to 1. Earlier, Tobacco Control Cell Assistant Director General Health Dr Minhaj-us-Siraj informed the audience about the national legislation and talked of the achievements made by the Ministry of Health towards tobacco control. These included having smoke-free policies and introduction of pictorial health warning.
“This is the year of implementation of law,” he said adding that recently, for the first time in Pakistan, few people had been fined under the law. Dr Babar Alam, Allam Asghar Ali Kausar Warriach and others also spoke.
