Singles sales ban pre-empted

Before the government of Bihar, India, could enforce its proposed ban on the sale of single or loose cigarettes on the grounds that they do not carry the required health warning, a manufacturer had started selling single-piece cigarette packs carrying the warning, according to a Times of India story.

The sale of loose or single cigarettes, which, according to one estimate is worth Rs359 billion a year, is already banned in at least six states, and Bihar was to follow.

The executive director of the Socio Economic Educational Society, Deepak Mishra, said the company that was selling the single-piece packs had no history of producing cigarettes, only smokeless tobacco products.

But he said that it had shown a way in which the bigger manufacturers could circumvent the ban.

A cancer surgeon at the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, Dr. Pankaj Chaturvedi, was quoted as saying that the manufacturing company must have obtained a license from a union [federal] ministry.

But it should not have been given such a license because India was a signatory to the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The health ministry should have been consulted before a license was given.