Activist makes airport put up anti-tobacco poster

Mumbai: Smokers rushing to city airport's smoking lounge now have to face up to a grim reality. Staring straight at them is a two-foot-long poster showing how tobacco-related cancer can permanently alter a person's visage.
In fact, the airport may be among the very few spots in the city or even the country to put out such an anti-tobacco message. Although the Union government issued a notification on August 11, 2011, making the poster mandatory outside every vendor who sells tobacco products-be it cigarettes or gutka-little has been done to ensure its implementation.
At the airport too, it was an anti-tobacco activist's letter to the Mumbai International Airport Pvt Ltd (MIAL), which ensured that the law was followed. On February 11, activist Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi, an associate professor at Tata Memorial Hospital in Parel and closely associated with the Smoke Free Mumbai project, found a tobacco major's counter near Mumbai airport's gate number A3 blocking a portion of the emergency exit.
"I wrote to the airport manager pointing out this as well as the violations to the Tobacco Control Act," said Dr Chaturvedi. "As per the amended Section 6 of the Cigarette and Other Tobacco Product Act, every tobacco shop must display a 2 X 1 feet warning at the point of sale. This warning contains a picture of mouth cancer along with a text warning. The airport shop didn't have any such display," he said.
28/02/12 Malathy Iyer/Times of India

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Categories: airports Feb 2012