Naam me kya rakha haiIJ Itching to chew delicious, luring, fragmented, addictive nicotine filled tobacco but worried about official ban in placeIJ Just visit any betel shop, roadside chaiwala or a grocery store and pick up as many as you want from the strings hanging overhead. The same cancerous material is available in the name of ‘paan masala’ or ‘sugandhit supari’. The feature is omnipresent despite the Jharkhand Cabinet slamming ban in July 2012 on sale, storage and trade of gutkha and pan masala made of tobacco and containing nicotine. This prompted the innovation filled manufacturers and traders to find out way and defeat the very spirit of the moratorium, put in place keeping human health in high esteem.
“I also have come across such a brazen sale of the materials and have in fact tried to find out what they are by remaining undercover. The ingredient printed on the sachets does not reveal about tobacco content into it and rather read that betel nuts are inside. Anyway, the material is harmful to health but ducks the technical definitions put for the ban,” acknowledges Ranchi SSP Prabhat Kumar. He though presented some respite for the people by saying that a team with the SDO would be formed soon to raid such selling points but at the same time put in place limited scope available in the light of existing provisions. “We would be taking action soon but I also feel tighter regulations are the need of the hour in order to make the ban airtight,” says the SSP.
A former Director of Health Services also agreed to the notion and termed the regulations insufficient to deal with the problem. “They have continued by reducing or hiding the percentage of tobacco. We had conducted few raids earlier but then the manufacturers took benefits of the loopholes available. There should be Delhi-like blanket ban on such products,” he suggested. The Government at the time of banning had presented reasoning saying that out of total cancer cases, 25 per cent are related to mouth cancer and caused by nicotine based gutkha and pan masala.
However for vendors, it is a win-win situation. “People come asking for it and thus we keep it. Policemen take money for selling the pouches,” said a cart-man stationed at Kanke Road with variety of products mentioning nothing about the banned substances. The tailor made name can cheat law, administration and even consumer but the deadly disease.