Companies sell
tobacco-less pan masala and tobacco separately, claiming that chewable tobacco
is not a food product.
They are selling tobacco-less pan masala and sachets of
tobacco separately
While gutka in its known form may be
banned, its seemingly legal derivatives are still freely available. A multitude
of colourful sachets hang in shops, and business is usual for shopkeepers.
Although, the only difference though is that for a gutka-like kick one needs to
buy multiple products. “We no longer supply gutka. But you can mix these two,”
said a shopkeeper in Assaigoli on the outskirts of the city, pointing to two
different coloured sachets.
Though the government has banned the
sale and making of gutka and pan masala that contain tobacco or nicotine under
the Food Safety and Standards (Prohibition and Restrictions on Sales) Regulations,
2011, on May 31, companies subvert the ban by selling tobacco-less pan masala
and sachets of tobacco separately.
For Rs. 2, customers buy pan masala
(with no tobacco, no nicotine printed clearly) and a small sachet of tobacco.
Contents of the two are crushed between the palms, mixed well and then chewed.
“The taste is terrible. But you get used to it,” said an autorickshaw driver,
who was buying two such sachets in Bendoorwell here.
Though the sale of products such as
these has reduced by half since the ban, Chandra, a shopkeeper in Marnamikatte,
said many resorted to buying tobacco separately. “At least 40 per cent of the
customers buy sachets of pan masala and chewing tobacco… The ban is not
effective unless chewing tobacco itself is banned.”
The sale of chewable tobacco
exploits a loophole in the wording of the Section 2.3.4 of the Regulation,
which prohibits addition of tobacco to food, said Vishal Rao, Director, Cancer
Prevention and Tobacco Control Project, Institute of Public Health, Bangalore.
“This is a billion dollar industry
that is looking at all the ways to flout the law. They claim chewable tobacco
is not a food product. This is a technicality, and States are still waiting for
a Supreme Court clarification on this,” he said.
He said creating multiple names –
Chaini, Zarda, among others – instead of labelling it as gutka was another way
to create an “atmosphere of confusion” to circumvent the ban.
While claiming that gutka is not
freely available in the district, B.V. Rajesh, Food Safety Officer, said that
without a government order, they could not stop the sale of either pan masala
or chewable tobacco.
