New Delhi: A study conducted by the Global Public Health Organization has revealed that of the 267 million tobacco users in India, nearly 72 million adults smoke bidis, and nearly half (47 percent) of users smoke their first bidi before they become 10 years old. While the social media platform has been playing a major role in promoting tobacco products.
Released during the COP9 global conference on tobacco, the study comes as social media marketing by tobacco and bidi companies is a growing public health concern.
"Tobacco marketing increase tobacco use. As advertising regulations in traditional media have taken hold, the industry is migrating its marketing online where national regulations have been less clear. This report is a call to action for governments to surveil and address tobacco marketing on digital media," said Nandita Murukutla, vice president, global policy and research of Vital Strategies.
The Vital Strategies, a global health organisation, working with government and civil society in 73 countries has compiled the report.
The report titled 'Selling Death on Social Media: How Bidis Are Reaching Consumers Online" details digital media monitoring data with 344 instances of bidi marketing on social media between December 2020 and August 2021.
The study found that Facebook hosts at least 30 distinct pages for bidi companies. "Many of these companies appear to be utilizing Facebook pages to facilitate sales," the study said.
It has been found that in 79 percent of instances, bidi products were being directly marketed with cleaner images of the product. "This is compared to 9 percent of other smoking products and less than 1 percent of smokeless products, which are often marketed indirectly through more clandestine ways to circumvent current advertising regulations," the report said.
In fact, along with manufactured cigarettes and other smoking tobacco products, bidis are major risk factors for tobacco-related disease and deaths in India.
Data have shown that bidis deliver higher levels of nicotine and cancer-causing chemicals than manufactured cigarettes. It is also linked to several diseases such as lung and oral cancer, as well as respiratory disease, heart attack, and tuberculosis. Tobacco products and bidi account for 1.35 million deaths every year in India.
"The advertising of tobacco products including bidi through social media is no doubt alarming. The government needs to strictly enforce regulations," said Dr Tamorish Kole, president of the Asian Society of Emergency Medicine.
Dr Kole said that along with creating health issues, this tobacco product is also attributable to direct and indirect costs on its users.
It may be mentioned here that India has a comprehensive legislation namely Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply, and Distribution) Act, 2003 (COTPA 2003) to regulate the use of tobacco products.
The Act mandates a ban on the sale of tobacco products to and by minors, prohibition of direct and indirect advertising of tobacco products, and mandatory display of specified health warnings among others.
However, the enforcement of provisions of COTPA 2003 and Rules lies with the State government. "Here the State government also needs to take strong actions to strongly implement the rules and regulations of the COTPA 2003 Act," said Dr Kole.
