Warning! Did you know about laws related to smoking?
In this article, I have mentioned laws that regulate smoking cigarettes and tobacco-related products in public places.
This article includes the content of the topic that is quite common — smoking. Every person knows how dangerous it is to smoke cigarettes and what it causes to your health, we all have come across this sign of “Smoking causes cancer, it is injurious to health” in movie theatres, public places such as educational institutions, public parks, workplaces, etc. I never thought of searching for laws related to smoking cigarettes until my environmental law faculty mentioned it to me once. I pondered that I must go through such laws if there exists any and try to share them with the most.
39th and 43rd World Health Assembly by the WHO urged the member states to implement measures for ensuring that effective protection is provided to people who are non-smokers from involuntary exposure to tobacco and smoke and for the protection of children and young people from getting an addiction to the usage of tobacco. In response to these conferences, many member states created laws.
Does any law regarding cigarettes exist in India? Yes! it does, there are acts and rules in India — one is the Cigarettes (Regulation of Production, Supply, and Distribution) Act, 1975, and the other one is the updated version of the 1975 Act namely The Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply, and Distribution) Act, 2003. This law widely talks about how advertisements regarding cigarettes and tobacco-related products are to be made, how they are to be sold, how can they be traded, what are the restrictions, warnings to be provided in packages of cigarettes, etc., regarding cigarettes and related products such as Tobacco be made.
Section 8 of the Act specifies the manner in which warnings should be made on the packages of cigarettes. Sub-section (1) specifies that warnings on the package of cigarettes and other tobacco products must be capable of being read by the buyer or consumer, the warning must be distinguished and highlighted and must be of such size and color that is clearly visible. The font must be bold and dark enough for the person to read clearly.
Smoking can cause very dangerous diseases such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) which is a chronic inflammatory lung disease and continuous smoking can lead to the severeness of this disease and cause lung cancer. It is a piece of common knowledge but a serious issue. You will be doing a wonderful job by quitting smoking if you are a smoker, and especially if you are a chain smoker. There are rehab centers that help people to quit smoking. It not only affects you but also the person around you, why should a non-smoker face health issues?
It was also held in one case law, Murli S. Deora v. Union of India, 2002 that smoking in public places violates the right to life under article 21, and non-smokers cannot be compelled to be the victim of air pollution. Smoking injures the health, causes pollution, and that ultimately injures health again. A study on health issues due to air pollution shows that 10 lakh people die due to tobacco in India. 12.4 lakh premature deaths are due to air pollution. Do you still want to smoke? Looking at how scary the effects are quitting is one best option.
It is one common fact that smoking in public places is prohibited. There is one such law regulating this namely the Prohibition of Smoking in Public Places Rules, 2008. This law has only 5 sections but is important. This law says that it is illegal to smoke in any public place.
As per Section 2(d) of the rules, a public place is any place that includes a workplace, shopping malls, cinema halls. The rules also specify the meaning of smoking area under Section 2(e) as a separately ventilated smoking room that must be physically separated and have 4 walls of full height; must have an entrance which should have an automatic door and the door be kept in close position. It is specified that such an area/room must have a system for airflow and must have negative air pressure in comparison to the rest of the building if such a smoking area is a part of any building.
Section 3 of the rules widely talk about the prohibition of smoking in a public place. Sub-section (1) says that it is the duty of the owner, supervisor, manager, proprietor, or an in charge of a specific public place to ensure that no person smokes at such a public place. It is also specified that the person in charge must display boards regarding warnings for no smoking in the entrance(s) of such public places. It is further mentioned that no such item should be displayed in a public place that might facilitate smoking such as lighter, ashtrays, matches, or other related products.
Sub-section (2) explains that the owner or in charge of such a public place should notify and display the names of those persons to whom a complaint can be made by any person who observes that someone is violating the provision of these rules. Do we really complain? How many of us have ever bothered complaining about a person smoking in a public place?
Sub-section (3) says that if the owner or person in charge fails to take action if anyone had reported or complained regarding the violation, then such owner or in charge will be liable to pay a fine equivalent to the number of individual offenses. (For clarity, the term offense has been explained as any act which violates any provision of the rules.)
There are rules made in order to minimize smoking in public places. But we still see people around us smoking and all we do is go further away from such person rather than stopping them. In my viewpoint, this law must be made stricter as there is no clarity as to what punishments must be imposed besides a fine. We all know how the new amendment of the Motor Vehicles Act blew up the public with stricter rules, heavier fines, and penalties. Similar strictness must be brought for smoking in public places. here, smoking must not only include the cigarette that releases smoke, but also other types such as non-smoke cigarettes, e-cigarettes, etc.
