Posted on 01/03/2003 3:53:20 PM PST by vannrox
Law soon to ban tobacco: Shatrughan Sinha
Mumbai, Jan 3 (UNI) A law will soon be formed to ban tobacco and its related
products including gutkha throughout the country, according to Health and Family Welfare Minister Shatrughan Sinha.
While delivering the inaugural address at 'Pedicon - 2003', a four-day international conference on Pediatrics which started here yesterday, Mr Sinha said that the Bill to ban tobacco and its related products was presently pending before the standing committee of the Parliament.
After the standing committee's approval, it will be placed before the Cabinet. The bill will then be put to vote in the Parliament, he said.
Admitting that the tobacco lobby was effective in politics, the Union Health Minister said, ''But, I shall not be afraid of any situation.'' Mr Sinha said 90 million cigarettes were consumed every year and there was a tobacco-related death every 40 seconds in India.
''More than 7 lakh people die every year due to tobacco related diseases,'' he said adding that such diseases would cause the maximum number of deaths by 2020.
Out of the total number of cancer patients in the country, 50 per cent males and 25 per cent females were suffering from the life-threatening disease because of tobacco, he said.
The very same ones pushing Europe...... started in the Clinton years of course.
Now, I stick to my Dominican friends H. Upmann and Partagas.
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