Are bans good public policy in India?

Are bans good public policy in India?,

Public policy

By Professor Bejon Kumar Misra, International Consumer Policy Expert, New Delhi, India

We find a ordinary adherence and affection for the prohibition of products in our united states despite the fact that such products are allowed to be synthetic and traded legally international. As a patron, we strongly experience public bans can be placed on products and associated services simplest if there may be a threat that they may cause extreme injury, contamination, or death. Globally, nations are engaged in harmonising laws and requirements to promote Universal Quality and Safety Standards inside the interest of public health. It has been properly documented that bans have finished little to guard the patron, instead they inspire increased growth of contraband merchandise.

Take the instance of the States of Bihar, Gujarat, Tripura, Lakshadweep, Mizoram, and Nagaland, which can be declared as the dry states in which alcohol is banned. Both anecdotally and via seizures, it’s far obtrusive that there is no dearth of supply of liquor in spite of such public prohibition. From books to porn, from drug treatments to apps, India has an extended history of resorting to bans as an option to each regulation and governance.

Most bans have either a patriotic or ethical overlay to them as opposed to counting on empirical proof. So, even as there may be no quarrel over bans on, say, risky food and drugs, natural world merchandise, or antiquities that compromise on safety, it boggles the imagination why we need to stay wedded to bans as a moral posture in other areas, where the world has moved on based totally on technology and evidence.

It turns into that much more mystifying while it applies to merchandise which are honestly displaying a patron choice as a safer opportunity. Consumer data is the most important detail for customer safety and policy decisions. Regulations that reduce purchaser freedom primarily based on political issues with out unscientific justification are untenable.

In 2008, India imposed a ban on smoking in public locations to decrease excessive levels of tobacco addiction. Direct and oblique marketing of tobacco merchandise and the sale of cigarettes to kids turned into additionally prohibited. However, surrogate advertising flourished and smoking in undesignated places accelerated without any inhibition or fear. Clearly, the ban did not meet its intended purpose.

Similarly, in 2019, e-cigarettes/ ENDS had been banned, which might be offered globally with appropriate regulatory controls as possible much less dangerous alternatives to traditional tobacco merchandise. Indian consumers are being disadvantaged of a “better choice” and with law, the authorities has the possibility to govern the sale and use of illegally sourced ENDS/ e-cigarettes, especially with the aid of kids and non-smokers.

To set the context: India has the second-biggest tobacco-the use of population inside the international and tobacco causes about eight million avoidable deaths in line with annum. The World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) to which India is a signatory recognises the need for tobacco damage reduction further to other tobacco manipulate measures.

Indian National Health Policy 2017 comprehensively consists of the factor of tobacco control and sets out the goal for reaching a 30% relative discount of tobacco use by 2025 from the degrees in 2009-10. India has taken giant steps for tobacco manipulate over the last twenty years. The Government has additionally promoted nicotine alternative therapies (nicotine chewing gums, patches, etc.) to help people quit smoking however with little achievement

Over the years, the controversy over tobacco has split into two clean streams: those who accept as true with that the handiest way forward is to stop tobacco or, to put it in reality, quit or die, and the others who accept as true with that quitting tobacco is less complicated stated than executed and rather look for merchandise that lessen or cast off the hazard altogether. Fortunately, for the second one circulation, with tremendous improvements made in science and research, a wide variety of merchandise are to be had globally that lessen harm to a large extent. UK, Japan, USA and much of Europe have encouraged such merchandise.

Incorporation of harm reduction technique in Indian Policy will guide clients for whom quitting is a clear a project. Policymakers can provoke multi-stakeholder consultations with purchasers, public-fitness analysts, and researchers to broaden a progressive and evolving regulatory framework.

It is prudent to explore science-primarily based options of more secure and much less volatile options whilst traditional excessive-danger tobacco merchandise are legally offered. Article forty seven of the Indian Constitution obliges the State to regard the development of public health as amongst its primary responsibilities, and not giving the consumer the right to an knowledgeable desire is not simplest against public coverage however additionally undermines the Constitution and the freedom of a client to pick out.

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