“The pipe with solemn interposing puff makes half a sentence at a time enough;
The dozing sages drop the drowsy strain, then pause, and puff-and speak, and pause again” – William Cowper
Manning up to the step-motherly treatment meted out to North-East is worth a cause but paying heed to a motherly advice may be a good start.
The Meghalaya Government has done a lot when it comes to implementing directives for a fairer operation at all levels and on paper, the crime and nuisance here is of no match to the grievous extents of what occurs worldwide.
Howsoever, much of the Supreme Court directives are turned down in this “Power Regime”! With the minimal public response and the “I-don’t-give-a-damn!” attitude, failure of implementing laws receives a ‘negatively positive’ thrust. First comes the ban on plastics – highly debated, implemented and boosted but never succeeded. Then the tinted glasses, scraped off some but another failure owing to its ‘tinted existence’ adorning the ‘music blazing-glass clinkering’ young blood! And finally, another grand act of disobeying directives, with hundreds sucking on the ‘tumour causing and teeth staining’ white stick of wrong elixir.
Judicial activism has played a major role in providing impetus to the tobacco control legislation, both by directing the government to take much needed steps for tobacco control and by creating a climate of public support for such legislation.
Howsoever the much needed fanfare was never seen here in Meghalaya. The High Court of Kerala in July 1999 issued a path-breaking judgment that banned smoking in public places in that state.
On 2 November 2001, the Supreme Court of India banned smoking in public places and issued directions to the Union of India, the State Governments and the Union Territories to take necessary action to ensure implementation of the ban. We are now nearing the ‘half-time’ of 2012 and over a billion cigarettes have been sucked upon…a billion more to be.
In a democracy, will of the majority prevails and yet, the non-smoking community has no say but quietly dine on ‘left-over air’ to fill their breathing needs.
Portraying an act of defiance, smoking in public places has in fact increased and the intense passion of burning money over ‘flakes of gold’ or the self-proclaimed safer ‘duo-tech charcoal filters’ have surely surged recently.
A survey by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) reveals that passive smoking on children in the first three years of life leads to brain anomaly, medically termed as Otitis Media. This is just the ‘appetizer’.
It is established that roughly 75 per cent of the smoke from a lit cigarette goes straight out into the air as side stream smoke. The smoker inhales the remaining 25 per cent as mainstream smoke and breathes out half of this.
In all, 85 to 90 per cent cigarette smoke gets into air, which others inhale. Why should this newer ‘Gas Tragedy’ be ignored?
Its well known that ‘Environmental Tobacco Smoking’ (ETS) studies have been carried out in many countries and with the American Health Association statistics stating a staggering 40,000 deaths from passive smoking alone, I suppose we are not falling behind…not bragging of course!
Now, ironically, the big booming business of this is always near a centre that either forbids smoking and teaches the ‘special effects’ of smoking or near a centre that cures the ones who relished the burning stick.
Expanding beyond the boundaries of any neighbourhood, any institute or organisation will surely have a stall opposite the main gate and mostly closer enough with ‘kwai bad khui’ offered at the entrance. Educational institutions however have a stall well within the forbidden 100 yards radius. There are numerous laws laid under the Provisions of “Cigarette and other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement & Regulation of Trade & Commerce, Production, Supply & Distribution) Act, 2003, “Cigarette & Other Tobacco Products Rule, 2004”, “Prohibition of Sale of Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products around Educational Institution Rules, 2004”, “Tobacco Products Amendment Rules, 2005” and “Prohibition of Smoking in Public Places Rules, 2008” and Section 6 forbids its sale near institutions whereas Section 4 clearly bans a person from smoking in a public place. Much like the ‘No-Parking’ and the ‘No-horn zone’, ‘No-Smoking’ has been idiotically practised everywhere.
Be it Nazareth Hospital or Civil Hospital or any other that meets the sight, a tiny cigarette stall is always busy providing ‘nicotine relief’ to anxious attendants perhaps! Now surely, a customer never runs to any corner…so we have a bundle of depressed attendants smoking in the campus which being a hospital can be labelled as a ‘Public place’. This may still be negated considering the fact that a similar business thrives exactly where it isn’t supposed to.
Sale of cigarettes within a 100 yard radius of an educational institution is forbidden and it has been stated that the Owner/Manager etc. of an educational institution shall display and exhibit a Board or Boards outside the premises stating that sale of cigarettes and other Tobacco products within a radius of 100 yards is prohibited.
Being burdened under the pressure of education and unemployment is possibly not the reason why these stalls are allowed to operate.
A period off (or bunked!) and a break would mean the sale of a hundred cigarettes opposite some of the major institutes in the city. If only a small amount from the fiery prospectus sale goes in making a legal signboard!
Smoking is a public nuisance as covered under Section 268 of the Indian Penal Code – as it “causes any common injury, danger or annoyance to the public”. Further, the court invokes another Section which concerns “making the atmosphere noxious to health” and says: “There can be no doubt that smoking in a public place will vitiate the atmosphere so as to make it noxious to the health of persons who happen to be there. Therefore smoking is an offence punishable under Section 278 of the IPC.” “Public smoking of tobacco in any forms whether in the form of cigarettes, cigars, beedies or otherwise, is illegal, unconstitutional and in violation of Article 21 of the Constitution of India (which assures every citizen the right to life and liberty).
These mind boggling articles and provisions may be another excuse for the common masses who aren’t any advocate’s son. So a simple means of curbing the problem would definitely begin by relocating the stalls so as not to kick on someone’s livelihood for ‘inevitable death seems to be more of a choice than forced upon’.
Entrances to a hospital and a college may finally look clean sans the extinguished sticks…and Meghalaya may just save itself from being labelled ‘Abode of the nicotine cloud’.
(By Nawaz Yasin Islam)