tobacoo interaction | Consumer Voice

Media Sensitization – Press Meet at Chandigarh on 30th March, 2018

by admin | Apr 3, 2018 | Tobacco

Consumer VOICE organized a press interaction meet in collaboration with state partner, Citizens’ Awareness Group (CAG) on March 30, 2018 at Hotel Aroma, Chandigarh. The meet underlined the need for strict implementation of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution Act, 2003 (COTPA) in Punjab to protect children from tobacco consumption.

The main objective of the meet was to sensitize the media and discuss the most pressing issues in Tobacco Intervention and how media can play an effective role in tobacco control. Ms. Rinki Sharma, Head Projects and CSR, Consumer VOICE and Ms. Ekta Purohit, Manager Projects along with Mr. Surinder Verma, Chairman, Citizens Awareness Group and Dr S.M. Bose, former Senior Professor and Head of Surgery and Emergency in PGI Chandigarh, addressed and interacted with media persons.

Dr S.M. Bose said that tobacco is a slow poison and there should be total ban on its consumption. Not only it causes direct cancer but also effects various other organs causingpeptic ulcer, esophagus cancer, prostrate, urinary bladder, and pancreas, he said. Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) India in its 2016-17 reports that out of the total population in Punjab, 7.3% smoke tobacco and 8% use smokeless tobacco.

According to National Family Health Survey 2015-16, in the past one decade, the number of men using tobacco products in Punjab has increased from 19.2% to 34%, and Chandigarh itself has 17 percent population consuming tobacco.

Dr Bose said 114 people die every hour in India due to tobacco use, and expressed his dismay at the results of a recent survey by PGIMER in 25 government schools of Raipur Rani where it found 25 percent children consuming tobacco.

Surinder Verma, Chairman, Citizen Awareness Group, informed that along with Consumer Voice special initiatives are being taken to sensitize all stakeholders and would be approaching the authorities to effective implementation of COTPA, by not only banning the use of its sale within 100 yards of the school premises and effective implementation of
COTPA.

Media Persons from following electronic, print and online platforms participated in the Press Meet: