The city-based Anti-Tobacco Forum (ATF) and Cancer Patients’ Aid Association on Tuesday urged the State government to remove the ambiguity in its notification on chewing tobacco and implement the ban on gutka effectively.
Gutka was banned in Karnataka on May 31, 2013, coinciding with ‘World No Tobacco Day’. But chewing tobacco resurfaced in the market in the form of twin sachets in which one packet contained raw tobacco and the other contained flavours, said Vasanthkumar Mysoremath, convener of ATF.
He said the consumer is sold both pouches together so that they can be mixed and consumed. “This strategy by the tobacco industry became possible because of the wording/loophole in the notification issued by the Commissioner of Food Safety in October 2016,” Mr. Mysoremath said in a press release.
Under Section 2.3.4 of the Food Safety and Regulation (Prohibition) Act ,2011, nicotine cannot be part of a food product, he explained. Some States have already banned such new variants of gutka by issuing orders banning all forms of chewing tobacco products, he said.
The Union Health Ministry had told the Chief Ministers and the Chief Secretaries of all the States to ban all forms of chewing tobacco. Karnataka issued an order to this effect in October last year. “However, some reports in the press say the State government has been thinking about revising this order. Instead, the government should take immediate action to plug the loopholes in the order,” Mr. Mysoremath said.
Anti-tobacco activists are concerned that any revision would be detrimental to the ban already passed in 2013, he added.
