Indian students can recall brands like Wills and Pan Parag, which are the two most popular cigarette and chewing tobacco brands. This happened because despite legal prohibitions on tobacco advertisements, these brands continue to be advertised through surrogate means, says the new study published last week in the online edition of the American Journal of Health Behaviour.

Two Central legislations – Cable Television Network (regulation) Act and Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (prohibition of advertisement and regulation of trade and commerce, production, supply and distribution) Act – prohibits almost all types of tobacco advertisements except small display boards at the tobacco shops.

Despite the ban tobacco promotion – by surrogate means like brand stretching – plays an “important influence contributing to the increase in tobacco use and change in tobacco use patterns among urban Indian adolescents,” says the research conducted by the University of Texas, Austin, All India Institute of Medical Sciences and a Delhi-based non governmental organisation, HRIDAY.

Brand recall

The research was conducted on 11,642 grade six and eight students in 32 schools in Delhi and Chennai. As many as 665 students have been able to recall multiple tobacco brands including Wills, Gold Flake and Red and White. 

“The number is sizable and statistically significant. This is the first study showing a clear association between surrogate advertisement and influence on students,” HRIDAY director Monika Arora told Deccan Herald. Denying that the number (665 students who responded positively) is too small to arrive at a definitive conclusion, Ms Arora said, “The fact that there is a recall is our concern. The trend is on the rise.”

The new findings have come at a time when the Union Health ministry is experiencing stiff political opposition in implementing mandatory publication of gory pictures on cigarette and beedi packets – a decision approved by the Union cabinet headed by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh.

The matter has been referred to a group of ministers headed by Pranab Mukherjee, which had earlier turned down the Health ministry’s proposal.

While the politically powerful tobacco industry claims severe loss of livelihood if  the sale of cigarette and beedi drops due to these warning images, the Health ministry’s counter is that tobacco kills eight lakh people every year every year and the government spends 27,000 crore rupees annually to treat tobacco-related diseases.

The outcome of this study that throws light on the influence of tobacco commercials on students remains to be seen. But what is clear is that steps need to be taken in this regard, and more studies are needed too.