Pakistan in Media

Once again the profit motive may trump the government in its efforts to improve the general health of the nation. The government had announced the introduction of pictorial health warnings on cigarette packs and had given the industry a six-month deadline to print them as from January 1st 2010; thus joining 30 other countries having similar warnings. We are a signatory to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which requires more than 160 countries to use large, clear, visible and legible warnings on cigarette packs and other tobacco products. There have been written warnings on cigarette packs for years, but in a country where a majority are illiterate the tobacco industry were sanguine about printing warnings that most if its customers could not read anyway. Pictures, so the saying goes, are worth more than a thousand words – indeed they are, and graphic depictions of what is going on inside your body whilst smoking a cigarette may just cut into the (un)healthy profit margins of the tobacco barons.