Hindus have welcomed High Court of Australia’s August 15 landmark ruling on plain tobacco packaging, thus prohibiting tobacco company logos on cigarette packs and instead displaying graphic health warnings.
Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, hailing Australia for taking on big tobacco and winning, urged other countries of the world to be brave and follow Australia’s tough posture on tobacco marketing and draft similar rules to fight smoking. With this judgment, Australia……. will be the pioneering country where cigarettes and other tobacco products will be sold without branding in uniform drab olive-green packaging and featuring graphic pictures of smoking’s ill-effects and dire health warnings, attempting to depict smoking as unglamorous as of coming December. Hopefully, this would control or at least slow down the ruthless marketing strategies of tobacco industry focused on mercantile greed, bring positive impact on the health of the communities and persuade other countries to adopt/implement similar measures in their fight against big tobacco, Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, argued. World should do more to reduce demand/supply of tobacco products, protect people from tobacco smoke exposure, halt tobacco promotion, effectively ban tobacco sale to minors, launch national anti-tobacco campaigns, etc., Rajan Zed stressed. What was more important—health of the mankind affected by harmful and addictive tobacco or the mercantile greed of tobacco companies? Zed asked and pointed out that unnecessarily high global tobacco death toll needed to be brought down. According to World Health Organization: Tobacco use is one of the most preventable public health threats. Tobacco products will eventually kill up to half of the people who use them – that means nearly six million people die each year. If governments do not take strong action to limit exposures to tobacco, by 2030 it could kill more than eight million people each year.
