Private member’s bill proposes plain packaging of tobacco products in India

Health advocates, experts in public health, and cancer activists in India are rallying around a draft private member’s bill that seeks to introduce plain packaging of tobacco products across the nation.

Plain packaging of tobacco products, which has been described “as a weapons-grade public health policy that is causing apoplexy in the international industry,”1 was first rolled out in Australia in December last year.2

Exposure to advertising and promotion of tobacco products have been consistently linked to tobacco use, so plain packaging “would definitely contribute to addressing the tobacco epidemic in the Indian context,” Monika Arora, head of health promotion and tobacco control at the Public …