- Apr 2, 2009
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Manipur (India) bans sale and consumption of all tobacco products, creates hundreds of thousands of new criminals and black markets for untaxed and unregulated tobacco products
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This is about the 15th state in India that has banned smokeless tobacco products, and about the 10th state that has banned cigarettes, and Bhutan (just north of India) banned all tobacco sales about 5 years ago.
But from what I've read and heard, there is very little enforcement of these (and many other) laws in India, except for an occassional crackdown by local Health Dept in which they round up and arrest several dozen violators, and then hold a perp walk press conference announcing their crackdown (just like AG's and DA's do in the US against drug dealers right before an election).
It will be interesting to see how the impact of these laws will be reported in the future.
I suspect that Health Depts and anti tobacco extremists in India will continue to claim that tobacco prohibiton laws have been very effective at reducing tobacco use (and official tobacco company sales data probably will indicate no tobacco sales in states where it was banned).
But in reality, black market sales of tobacco products are likely nearly as much as legal sales were prior to prohibition.
NEWS ON AIR : News On AIR brings the Latest & Top Breaking News on Politics, G-20 summit, CHOGM 2011,Vice President's visit to Perth for CHOGM, Cricket, Sports, Business , State,Formula One in INDIA , Regional Language Audio Bulletins , Regional Lang
This is about the 15th state in India that has banned smokeless tobacco products, and about the 10th state that has banned cigarettes, and Bhutan (just north of India) banned all tobacco sales about 5 years ago.
But from what I've read and heard, there is very little enforcement of these (and many other) laws in India, except for an occassional crackdown by local Health Dept in which they round up and arrest several dozen violators, and then hold a perp walk press conference announcing their crackdown (just like AG's and DA's do in the US against drug dealers right before an election).
It will be interesting to see how the impact of these laws will be reported in the future.
I suspect that Health Depts and anti tobacco extremists in India will continue to claim that tobacco prohibiton laws have been very effective at reducing tobacco use (and official tobacco company sales data probably will indicate no tobacco sales in states where it was banned).
But in reality, black market sales of tobacco products are likely nearly as much as legal sales were prior to prohibition.
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