Enforcement is key for controls on use of tobacco to be effective
Today's youth would not be able to recall a time when you were considered grown up enough to buy tobacco, or for wartime military service for that matter, before you were old enough to be entitled to vote.
Today's youth would not be able to recall a time when you were considered grown up enough to buy tobacco, or for wartime military service for that matter, before you were old enough to be entitled to vote. Most countries have since brought the voting age into line with the minimum age for military service. Now India may take one big, unprecedented step further, if the government and parliament adopt an expert panel's recommendation to raise the minimum age for buying tobacco to 25. The panel also calls for a ban on sales of single sticks or unpackaged cigarettes in small quantities favoured by poor people, which account for 70 per cent of total sales.
India, the second-most populous nation after China, also has the second-biggest death toll from tobacco-related illnesses - around 900,000 a year. How the authorities would enforce such laws among 1.2 billion people remains to be seen, since cigarettes are sold at small stands on most street corners. Public health advocates say it is worth trying, because research shows that if someone has not begun smoking at 21, they are much less likely to become a user. It calls for a sustained education campaign, backed by strict penalties for retailers who break the law.
The World Health Organisation will be hoping the higher minimum smoking age is effective because it will provide a new benchmark for its relentless anti-smoking campaign.
China, meanwhile, is seeking public opinion on a nationwide smoking ban in all indoor and some outdoor public spaces, under a State Council ordinance released for public consultation that might be a step towards national legislation. Such a ban would meet a pledge under the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control.
Implementation remains the test in both countries, as health activists in Shenzhen can attest. Smoking has been banned in Shenzhen hospitals since 1998 but, as local media has reported, not a single ticket has been issued for violation of the ban in the past 12 years.