PLAY IT HEALTHY
– PLAY IT CLEAN
Sports
rejuvenates life. It ensures a healthy living. Sports promote
a feeling of fraternity among people and communities and foster
good relations between countries. Above all, sports are an occasion
to get together and imbibe the virtues of sportsmanship and healthy
competition, particularly among the youth.
The health and
social benefit of sports prompted the World Health Organisation
(WHO) to declare physical activity as this year’s theme for World
Health Day. Unfortunately, over the years tobacco has invaded
the sporting arena through sponsorships. Therefore, the theme
for this year’s World No-Tobacco Day is Tobacco Free Sports
and the slogan is Play it Clean since sports are increasingly
being misused as a medium to promote tobacco, particularly among
the youth.
The invasion of
tobacco has undermined the values and principles that sports represent.
If sports symbolize good health, tobacco stands for exactly the
opposite - disease and death. Tobacco kills more than four million
people every year. It kills nearly half its long-term users!
For the professional
athlete, tobacco use lowers performance levels. Worse, a shining
career in sports can actually end in cancer. For sportspersons,
like others, tobacco use affects lung function, muscular strength,
sleep patterns, and causes other health problems.
Unlike cancer
and heart disease, which may take many years to develop, smoking
can affect the respiratory system within a year or two, the extent
of the damage depending on the duration of smoking and the number
of cigarettes smoked.
Quitting can improve
lung function and reduce other harmful effects of smoking. The
longer a person smokes the greater the risk of irreversible damage.
Just five years of smoking can cause lasting damage.
WHO and its partners
are launching a campaign to clean sports of all forms of tobacco
– its consumption , exposure to second-hand smoke, advertising,
promotion and marketing.
As far as India is
concerned, the Government has taken stringent legislative and
administrative steps to dicourage the use of tobacco. Tobacco
is used both for smoking and in smokeless form. The smoked forms
of tobacco are bidi, cigarette, chillum and chutta . Smokeless
forms of tobacco include khaini, gutkha, mainpuri tobacco, mawa
and mishri. Cigarette smoking constitutes 13 per cent of the smoked
tobacco consumption with bidi accounting for the major proportion.
Pan masala was introduced in the Indian market in 1975 and pan
masala containing tobacco is popularly known as gutka. There has
been a tremendous surge in consumption of gutka in the country.
Based on the a
survey, it is estimated that 18.4 crore (15 crore men and 3.4
crore women) use tobacco in some form or the other. It is estimated
that 9.6 crore persons use tobacco in smokeless form whereas 11.2
crore smoke tobacco.
According to a
few community-based surveys in India, it is estimated that 8 lakh
deaths could be attributed to tobacco use. It is estimated that
half of the long-term smokers will be eventually killed by the
habit and of these half will die during the productive middle
age.
Therefore, a strong
need was felt to discourage the use of tobacco products. A comprehensive
Bill was introduced in Parliament (Rajya Sabha) to discourage
the use of tobacco products on March 07, 2001 and was referred
to the Standing Committee on March 12, 2001 for examination. The
Standing Committee returned the Bill in December 2001 with certain
recommendations. It was decided by the Ministry of Health to accept
all the recommendations and the file was sent to the Department
of Legal Affairs and on receiving of their comments the file has
been sent to the Department of Legislative Affairs for incorporating
the suggestions.
The Salient features
of the Bill include prohibition of advertisements of all tobacco
products besides providing for its regulation in trade and commerce.
Smoking has been made prohibited in public places and selling
of tobacco products to persons below the age of 18 years has been
banned. Indications of nicotine are a must on the packets. It
has also made compulsory to indicate the warning against the use
of tobacco on the package in English as well as in other Indian
languages. A total ban has been placed on sponsoring of any sport/cultural
events by cigarette and companies producing tobacco products.
Sub-Inspectors
of Police or equivalent officers of State Food or Drug Administration
of the Central/State Governments have been empowered to carry
out the provisions of this legislation and confiscation of the
goods in case of any violation. The owner of the goods, however,
will be given the option to pay a fine in lieu of the confiscation,
which should be equal to the value of the goods confiscated. A
fine up to Rs. 200- has been imposed for minor offense relating
to smoking in public places and sale of tobacco products to minors.
The Bill would
be effective as far as the provisions regarding cigarettes are
concerned, all over India. But for other tobacco products only
to the UTs, Punjab, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Goa. This is
because other tobacco products (other than cigarettes) are in
the State list and only these States have passed resolutions in
their State legislatures undertaking to adopt a Central law in
the matter. The other States could adopt the law pertaining to
other tobacco products merely by passing a resolution in their
legislature.
Instructions have
been issued through the Cabinet Secretariat to prohibiting smoking
in hospitals, dispensaries, educational institutions, conference
rooms, domestic flights, AC sleeper coaches and suburban trains.
Direct tobacco-related advertisements are prohibited on Doordarshan
and All India Radio. The cable TV regulation Act has recently
been amended prohibiting tobacco advertising on cable TV also.
Under the rules,
a warning "Chewing of Tobacco is injurious to health"
has also been made mandatory. A number of States have introduced
laws banning smoking in public places and advertisements in public
places and public vehicles.
