Cigarette, bidi and other tobacco packets including gutka and zarda would, from June 1, have to portray disturbingly gory pictorial health warnings in order to make tobacco control measures more effective. The pictures would be of a repelling blood-oozing cancerous mouth, that too in colour. They would replace the existing ones like a scorpion or a diseased lung in black and white.

The Health and Family Welfare Ministry has issued a notification on the amendments to the Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling) Rules 2008 for specifying the new mandatory pictorial health warnings on both smoking and smokeless forms of tobaccos in the market. They would come into force from June 1 this year.

The necessity to change the pictorial warnings was felt as the conventional warnings like the scorpion and the lung were perceived to have not yielded the desired results. The pictures were soft and thereby ineffective in weaning people away from tobacco or preventing new addictions. The new picture of a cancer-stricken mouth is very strong to the point of being repulsive.

The warning has been put into paper after a vigorous field testing conducted by Voluntary Health Association of India and Healis Sanskaria Institute in both rural and urban settings across eight states. More than 98 per cent people said the notified warning instilled deep fear and would be effective in conveying the dangers of tobacco consumption. "Both smokers and non-smokers in Orissa said that this picture will have a lasting impact on the viewers' mind and discourage people from developing the habit of tobacco consumption," Itishree Kanungo of VHAI said.

By selecting an evidence based graphic health warning, the Union Government has taken a right step since it will effectively communicate the risks and dangers of tobacco use, especially to users with low literacy levels and children, VHAI chief executive Alok Mukhopadhyay said.