The Implementation Of The WHO FCTC Policies To Control Tobacco Consumption In India : An Analysis of the Legislation and Litigation

Abstract

Tobacco remains one of the largest causes of preventable deaths, leading to the death of almost nine lakhs adults in India annually. Thus, to tackle the situation the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (Prohibition and Protection Act) was passed in 2003 as an comprehensive law to prohibit the use of tobacco products. India was also quick to ratify the WHO FCTC convention in the year 2004. The states in India vary in their implementation of the COTPA legislation because of differences in terms of geographical location, demographics as well as the institutional capacity of the states to prioritise and implement the tobacco control policies. Therefore, with this paper an attempt has been made to consider tobacco control legislations and the implementation at the Central and the State levels. For this purpose, the COTPA Act has been mapped over the provisions of the WHO FCTC, to look into the compliance with international standards. The state wise implementation has also been considered by running a comparison between the state wise implementation of the MPOWER guidelines and the COTPA violations reported. The analysis finds that India has been performing well in some fronts like that banning of advertising and promotion of tobacco products but has been lagging in some fronts as well like the introduction of cessation services. Further the findings suggest the gaps in the state wise implementation.