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Eastern Mirror Desk
Dimapur, Aug. 21: The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has amended the Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling) Rules, 2008 wherein new specified health warnings will be displayed on all tobacco products.
The amended rules will come into effect from September 1 2019, a notification from the Ministry stated on Wednesday.
Two new images with specified health warnings will be displayed on the packaging, the statement informed. A telephone quit-line number “Quit Today Call 1800-11-2356” will also be part of it in order to create awareness and help tobacco users by providing counselling services and strategies for quitting tobacco use, it said.
“As per the recent second round of Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS -2, 2016-17)conducted in the age group 15 years and above, 61.9% of current cigarette smokers, 53.8% of current bidi smokers and 46.2% of current smokeless tobacco users thought about quitting because of warning label on packets of cigarette, bidi and smokeless tobacco,” the statement reported.
Interestingly, in a study conducted by researchers at Vanderbilt Center for Tobacco Addiction and Lifestyle (ViTAL), Nashville, USA, it was found that heavy cigarette smokers saw a 39% decline in the risk of getting cardiovascular diseases (CVD) like myocardial infarction, stroke, CVD death and heart failure, within five years after quitting.
The researchers used data from 1954-2014 from 8,770 participants to determine the effect of lifetime smoking and smoking cessation, and documented the risk of CVD on people who never smoked, who continued to smoke and those who had quit smoking.
“The cardiovascular system begins to heal relatively quickly after quitting smoking, even for people who have smoked heavily over decades,” Hilary Tindle, Founding Director of ViTal said.
“It takes at least five to ten years and perhaps up to 25 years after quitting, for CVD risk to become as low as that of a person who has never smoked,” the study informed.
(With inputs from IANS)