Tobacco Industry in India Misusing Facebook to Promote Cigarette/Bidi Sales Despite Being Prohibited by Legislations
Recently Vital Strategies, A Public Health Organization have released A Report named ‘Selling Death on Social Media. The Report highlights 344 instances of marketing of tobacco products on Social media platforms from December 2020 to August 2021.
Interestingly 98% of these instances were seen on Facebook. The Report says Increased marketing cases possess serious Public health concerns.
India is the worlds second-largest producer as well as consumer of products made from Tobacco. There are over 25 crore tobacco users in India, 12 crores of which smoke cigarettes/bidi’s before turning ten.
According to World Health Organization, India is home to nearly 12% of the world’s smokers; 10 Lakh people dies per year due to tobacco-related illness. Most of the tobacco users prefer Bidi’s over Cigarettes as it is widely available and ten times cheaper than the latter.
Bidi delivers more tar, nicotine and other toxic substances than a cigarette. The most likely health consequences of the use of Tobacco is Cancer and Heart diseases.
There are over 15 Lakh Cancer patients in India (highest in the world), out of which most of the cases pertain to tobacco use.
According to the Indian Heart Association (IHA), India accounts for 80% of Worlds heart disease burden despite having 20% of the world’s population.
IHA says the reduction in smoking is an effective strategy to reduce cardiovascular diseases The Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COPTA), 2003 prohibits advertising, promotion and sponsorship of Tobacco is banned (including on the internet).
The act applies to the whole of India and includes products like cigarettes, Bidi, Mava, Khaini etc products. It also prohibits the sale of tobacco products within 100 yards of educational institutes.
Oddly, almost all tobacco products are marketed using the internet, where restrictions are more difficult to enforce. Many products are promoted/marketed using unnoticeable ways to comply with existing legislation.
Increased marketing of Tobacco certainly builds up tobacco use. Report appeals to the Government’s to surveil and resolve the issue of tobacco marketing and also appeals to Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook to cut down advertisements promoting the use of this deadly product.
“Social Media giants are obliged to care their users, especially the young ones. Our research confirms the need of more careful surveillance of tobacco marketing- as per Section 5 of COPTA, 2003,” said Vaishali Mallik, Associate director, Vital Strategies.
Before the 16th century, people in India mostly smoked cannabis; it was only after the 16th century Tobacco was introduced in India by Europeans and since it merged with the existing practice of smoking (mostly cannabis).
In 2002, smoking in public was entirely prohibited as the Supreme court in Murli Deora Vs the Union of India and Others case recognized the harmful effects of smoking in public and also affected nonsmokers.
