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Delhi University campaign now targets beedi smokers 

The Delhi University Smoke-Free Initiative, after being extended to all DU colleges, has now turned its focus to beedis, as its usage among the youth is increasing.

The primary target of the campaign against beedis, however, would be the non-teaching staff. Beedis were the main agenda in a meeting of nodal officers of the project on October 25.

Every college of the university has a member of the faculty assigned as the nodal officer.

"We'll be targeting karamcharis (workers), who form a significant chunk of the university population. A large number of karamcharis smoke beedis. It has also been noted that rickshaw-pullers, who form the backbone of the DU transport system smoke beedis," said G R Khatri, president, World Lung Foundation (South Asia).

"Nodal officers have been asked to educate smokers that beedis are no less harmful than cigarettes," said Khatri.

"Cutting the source rather than a smoking ban is the aim of the project; and we have been largely successful in doing so. We'll discourage non-teaching staff from smoking on campus," said St Stephen's nodal officer Pankaj Misra.

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• Pictoral warnings on cigarette packs watered down 

Pictorial warnings on cigarette packets recently introduced by the government are about to be phased out, reports say. It is its a clear attempt to safe guard the interest of the people involved in the tobacco industry and to keep the governmen'ts crucial vote bank intact.

Initially, there were some gruesome pictures that depicted the worse possible effects of tobacco on the human body. These pictures were first notified by the Health Ministry in July 2006 as pictorial warnings for cigarette and gutka packets. But these pictures were shot down by the Group of Ministers (GoM) as 'objectionable'.

Former Union Labour Minister, Oscar Fernandes said, "If we're talking about making the pictures harsher, we may as well shut down the industry. There are several districts in West Bengal where poor bidi workers earn their livelihood from this."

In a meeting of the GoM chaired by Pranab Mukherjee in July 2007, it was decided that the picture of the dead body be replaced with a 'suitable' one.

The minutes of the meeting available with CNN-IBN show that in the GoM, Pranab Mukharjee said, "A number of representations have been received from the bidi industry that employs a large number of workers from the weaker sections of society. The basic issues raised by the bidi industry relate to the size, colour and obnoxious nature of the pictorial warnings. Keeping this is view, the pictorial warnings may be modified."

The GOM also asked the Health Ministry to consult the Ministry of Law and remove the 'skull and cross bone' as a warning sign.

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Bidi companies violating order on pictorial warnings: study 

More than six weeks have passed since the new rules on pictorial warnings on tobacco products came into force but bidi and gutka companies are openly violating them, a study said Monday.

The study has been conducted by a NGO Voluntary Health Association of India (VHAI) to monitor the implementation of the pack warning rules on tobacco products.

'Bidi brands have been completely violating the rules and have not implemented pictorial health warnings. Many chewable tobacco products like gutka, khaini have implemented the rules but have drastically watered down the already weak pictorial health warnings. A few cigarette companies and brands have implemented the pack warnings,' the study said.

The pictorial warnings are being carried under the Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products (Packing and Labelling) Rules, 2008, that came into effect May 31.

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Bidi companies violating order on pictorial warnings: study 

More than six weeks have passed since the new rules on pictorial warnings on tobacco products came into force but bidi and gutka companies are openly violating them, a study said Monday. The study has been conducted by a NGO Voluntary Health Association of India (VHAI) to monitor the implementation of the pack warning rules on tobacco products.

"Bidi brands have been completely violating the rules and have not implemented pictorial health warnings. Many chewable tobacco products like gutka, khaini have implemented the rules but have drastically watered down the already weak pictorial health warnings. A few cigarette companies and brands have implemented the pack warnings," the study said.

The pictorial warnings are being carried under the Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products (Packing and Labelling) Rules, 2008, that came into effect May 31.

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Did Ramadoss misrepresent facts? 

he Supreme Court made headlines recently when it asked for records of the controversial group of ministers (GoM) meeting on February 3 after former health minister A Ramadoss alleged that the minutes of the meeting — that took a call on tobacco warnings on cigarette and beedi packets — had been altered under pressure.

The TOI has now accessed records on the basis of which SC supported the government in its stand that Ramadoss had misrepresented facts when he alleged that the pictorial warnings had been reduced under pressure from the tobacco lobby.

The GoM chaired by the then foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee included urban development minister S Jaipal Reddy, former commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath and former minister of state (MEA and I&B) Anand Sharma besides Ramadoss. The ministers, with the exception of Ramadoss, agreed that the pictorial warnings on cigarette and beedi packets should be restricted to 40% of the principal display area on the front panel of the package only.

There was also unanimity that the warnings should not apply to wholesale packaging even if it meant making amendments in the Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products Packaging and Labelling Rules of 2008. . . .

On May 1, Ramadoss wrote to PM Manmohan Singh protesting that further amendment to the Packaging and Labelling Rules were being contemplated by the GoM to restrict the health warning to the front panel and only on packs meant for consumers. The health minister pointed out that the intended health warning in real terms would actually occupy only 20% space and would not meet the minimum requirement as per internationally accepted norms.

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• Tobacco warnings have failed to appear  

Anti-smoking groups welcome the introduction of graphic warnings on cigarette packs and other tobacco products but are sceptical they can have much of an effect on the country's 300 million tobacco users, more than half of whom live in the countryside.

The warnings, which show photos of decayed gums and diseased lungs as well as a skull and crossbones, were supposed to be in place in November but were delayed after lobbying by tobacco manufacturers.

However, last month, the Supreme Court stepped in and set a cut-off date of May 31 after which all packs of cigarettes, beedis (hand-rolled cigarettes) and gutka (a kind of chewing tobacco that also includes crushed betel nut) must carry pictorial warnings taking up about 40 per cent of the packaging area.

Anti-tobacco groups alleged that the government wanted to delay implementing the rules until after the just-completed general elections.

Yet, more than one week after the ruling and almost three weeks after the elections, the new cigarette packs have yet to make an appearance on store shelves.

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Pictorial warnings, how effective? 

Pictorial warning on tobacco products may take time to come into effect but experts differ its effectiveness in actually dissuading smokers.

"Showing great results in 22 countries of the world, these pictorial warnings on the tobacco products have influenced 42 per cent smokers to quit smoking," says a WHO source.

"But in India, the complexity is very high in the form of different options available in the market and because there is huge difference of taxation between different tobacco products, therefore people will not drastically cut down consumption and may shift to cheaper options, he says."

He emphasized that "like cigarettes, government should raise the prices of gutkas and bidis too" to reduce the consumption of all tobacco products.

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Customs smokes out beedi smugglers 

A forwarding company's attempt to smuggle in 9.8 million beedi (a South Asian cigarette) by declaring their consignment as sweet potatoes was foiled by the Customs Department.

Its enforcement team arrested a man after discovering the undeclared beedi worth some RM1mil in two 20-foot long containers last Thursday at the Klang Container Terminal in North Port at about 11am following a tip-off.

Selangor Customs director Datuk Roslan Yusof told reporters that the beedi, believed to have been smuggled in from Bangladesh, were packed under three layers of potatoes.

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• Beedi workers’ unions cry foul over Centre’s order 

HYDERABAD: Beedi workers' unions in the State are up in arms again with the Supreme Court clearing the Central government law making it mandatory to display pictorial warnings on tobacco packs from May 31.

Consequent to the implementation of Section 7 of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003, it will be compulsory to depict lungs for smoking forms of tobacco packages and scorpion for chewing and smokeless forms. . . .

M. Sirajuddin, president of All-India Beedi, Cigarette and Tobacco Workers Federation said the direction would cripple the beedi industry. Women who formed the bulk of the beedi workers were already feeling the pinch of insecurity said S. Rama, general secretary of AP Beedi and Cigar Workers Union. Two women beedi workers had already ended their lives in Nizamabad and Medak district, perturbed over their future.

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• Street children in Mumbai spend more on tobacco than food: survey  

Thousands of street children in Mumbai spend more on tobacco than on food every day, according to a survey of their economic conditions and tobacco consumption.

"Street children spend far more on tobacco than on nutritious food. These children spend more each month on naswar (snuff), mava, gutka (both forms of chewing tobacco) and cigarettes than on meat, almost as much for khaini (powdered tobacco) as for milk, and more for all forms of tobacco except masheri (tobacco paste) than on fruit or eggs," said the survey 'Choosing Tobacco over Food: Daily Struggles for Existence among the Street Children of Mumbai'.

The survey, conducted by Shelter Don Bosco - a Mumbai-based NGO working with street children, is part of a report 'Tobacco and Poverty: Observations from India and Bangladesh', distributed on the third day of the 14th World Conference on Tobacco or Health here.

"Tobacco use is an integral part of life for street children in Mumbai. They start by picking up discarded butts from cigarettes and beedis (small hand rolled cigars), then quickly move on to purchasing tobacco and spending significant sums of their meagre incomes on it. The children also report an array of health effects from tobacco use," the survey said.

A significant finding was that close to half (46.8 percent) of the children in the study sample use gutka and 39.5 percent smoke beedis.

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• Will it go up in smoke? 

"My mother was a beedi worker and my three sisters were beedi workers. From childhood I've been watching their sorry plight; call it TB, cancer, asthma, I've seen it all. When my mother coughed up blood, it used to fill a vessel; she would always say these women require better and cleaner housing," recalls Narsayya Adam, a third-time CPI(M) MLA from Solapur city in Maharashtra.

That was 40 years ago. But when he was first elected MLA in 1978, he took on the mission of organising and improving the lives of Solapur's beedi workers. "They lived in small, cramped huts with no ventilation and open gutters. I dreamt of giving them good homes with better ventilation."

With a background of participation in the mazdoor andolan, he first raised the voice of Solapur's 65,000-odd beedi workers in the State Assembly in 1978, and with support in Delhi cutting across party lines, in 1985, about 3,000 houses were built by the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority, each costing Rs 22,000. The State and Central governments contributed Rs 5,000 each and the remaining came from the workers. "But they couldn't repay the money they had borrowed and the interest piled up," says Adam, known as 'Adam Master' as he once worked as a teacher. . . .

Archana is 11, just back from school and, still in her school uniform, helps her mother in tying up the rolled beedis. When you ask the little girl what she wants to become when she grows up, her grandma intervenes: "What is the use of educating her? People like us don't get jobs in fancy offices; for us beedis is our livelihood." But Archana wants to become a teacher.

"Now I'm waging a battle to get them below poverty line (BPL) cards; once they get those cards they will get 20 kg wheat and 15 kg rice every month. That will be a big help for beedi workers."

He says 60 per cent of Solapur's 65,000 beedi workers are Telugu-speaking, and there are many Muslim women too in this vocation. . . .

But he has read the writing on the wall. "The biggest question before us is the Anti-tobacco Bill of 2003 which aims to slowly kill this business. This is a 5,000-year old sanskriti; but if you put skulls and skeletons on the packet, how will people buy it? Our research shows that cigarette is much more harmful; smoking 20 beedis is like smoking one cigarette."

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• 75% of Beedi workers suffer from illnesses 

A whopping 75% cent of about 44 lakh 'beedi' workers in the country suffer from multiple illnesses due to continuous exposure to tobacco and other hazardous substances, a study by an NGO has claimed.

The study conducted by the 'Voluntary Health Association of India (VHAI)' claimed that workers spent atleast 12 hours rolling beedis and faced the risks of contracting TB and developing chronic bronchitis, asthma, skin and spinal problems among others.

The study titled 'Caught in a Death Trap' involved a sample of over 1,000 workers of Anand district in Gujarat and Murshidabad in West Bengal.

The survey also claimed that almost all workers worked under "dehumanising conditions" as the industry openly "flouted" provisions of labour laws.

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Beedi workers flay ban on smoking 

TIRUNELVELI: Beedi workers in the district struck work on Tuesday in protest against the ban on smoking in public places and demanding the Government to jointly create alternative employment opportunities for the one crore-odd families involved in beedi rolling and allied industries across the country.

The protestors, who staged a demonstration at Melapalayam, said that though the ban would be a right decision, it should have been enforced after ensuring alternative employment opportunities for every family associated with beedi rolling.

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• "Bidi" smoking increases risk of lung cancer substantially  

Smokers of rolled tobacco are nearly four times more likely to develop lung cancer than non-smokers, researchers from India report.

Smoking "bidis" -- dried tobacco rolled in locally grown leaves -- is the most popular form of tobacco use among males in the southern Indian province of Kerala, Dr. Padmavathy Amma Jayalekshmy and colleagues write in September issue of International Journal of Cancer. . . .

"Mainstream smoke of bidi contains a much higher concentration of carcinogenic hydrocarbons such as benzanthracene and benzopyrene than US cigarettes," the researchers explain. Moreover, average bidi smokers take over five puffs per minute as compared to two puffs per minute among cigarette smokers.

"From the point of view of preventing cancer associated with smoking, whether smoking bidis or cigarettes may not be important since bidi smoking is at least as hazardous as cigarette smoking," they conclude. "Immediate measures should be taken to stop bidi smoking."

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• Costlier cigarette causing smokers to smoke bidis  

While the government is trying out various methods, including a hefty tax levy to make smokers give up smoking or cough up more, tobacco lovers are turning to cheaper options to 'puff away their blues'.

Trends indicate that smokers hit by the rising prices have shifted to so called down market options like bidis and Gutkas, as heavy tax slabs have failed to kill their urge to smoke resulting in an increase in total tobacco consumption.

"High rates of taxation on cigarettes are forcing consumers to shift to cheaper and alternate forms of tobacco consumption. As a result, overall tobacco consumption is increasing, as the price of other tobacco products is very low," says Udayan Lal, Director, Tobacco Institute of India (TII).

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