After a prolonged delay, government will soon notify new pictorial warnings on tobacco products, which will be "harsher" in case of chewing tobacco as it has been found more harmful than smoking. "The pictorial warnings are in the process of notification and can be notified any day. The Directorate of Visual Publicity have selected some pictures. There will be two types of warnings -- for cigarettes and for smokeless tobacco," Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said.
Azad, who was addressing the press to highlight two years of achievements of the ministry under him, said the Global Adult Tobacco Survey India carried out in 2009-2010 found out that 35 per cent of adults use tobacco in some or the other.
"Among them, 26 per cent adults use smokeless tobacco and nine per cent are smokers. Smokeless tobacco is responsible for 80 per cent of mouth cancer while 20 per cent of mouth cancers are occurring due to smoking," he said.
Based on the results that show smokeless tobacco products like gutka are more widely used and are causing more mouth cancers, the government is bringing a "new policy", Azad said adding, under this, "harsher" pictorial warnings will be brought in for chewing tobacco.
There are two existing pictorial warnings like scorpion and damaged lungs for cigarette while a new and stricter one -- a cancer stricken mouth -- was to be depicted from December one. Such warnings are to be rotated every year.
