India’s Top Court Bans Sale of Tobacco Products in India

Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) -- India’s Supreme Court banned the sale
of tobacco products in plastic wrappers from March 1, citing
harm to public health and environmental damage from improper
disposal of the packets.
    The two-judge bench headed by Justice G.S. Singhvi also
directed the government to submit a report in eight weeks after
studying the harmful effects of gutka, a mixture of betel nuts,
tobacco and proprietary additives. The decision also applies to
pan masala, a non-tobacco product that has the same appearance,
taste and packaging.
    The court’s order may help discourage the use of gutka by
making it more expensive as manufacturers will be forced to seek
alternative ways of packaging, said Kaustav Ray, analyst at the
Hyderabad, India-based unit of Datamonitor Plc. The gukta is
mostly sold in the country in plastic packets and costs as
little as one rupee (2 cents) a sachet.
    Sales of chewing tobacco, valued at 210.3 billion rupees
($4.7 billion) in 2004, may double in India by 2014, according
to Datamonitor.
    Scientific studies have found that both gutka and pan
masala contain tumor-causing agents, said Pankaj Chaturvedi, a
surgeon at Tata Memorial Hospital, Asia’s largest cancer
treatment center. The products contribute to making India the
“mouth cancer capital” of the world, he said.
    “There is already so much evidence showing that a number
of cancers are caused by these products,” Chaturvedi said in an
interview today. “For the environment, the plastic is bad. But
for the individual, the immediate danger comes from the
tobacco.”
    The Supreme Court’s interim order came after petitioners
challenged a 2007 decision by the Rajasthan High Court which
banned the use of plastics for making gutka packets. The next
date for the hearing is March 9.