Banning loose cigarettes will lead to more smokers

So there I was, smoking like a good citizen, ignoring all the social media outrage of fellow smokers, non-smokers, wannabe-smokers and wannabe-non-smokers all day. That's when I happened to read the news report. After, that is, returning from another round of inhale-exhale routine — going for a drag is quite a drag where I work; someone as horizontally challenged as I am might just finish a half-marathon in that time.

Sale of loose cigarettes is likely to be banned in India as the Union health ministry has accepted recommendations of an expert panel on tobacco use, health minister JP Nadda told Parliament on Tuesday, the report said. Now, I have nothing to lose on the loose cigarette front. I stopped buying them, loose ones that is, years ago. Apparently, this expert panel feels more people smoke because loose cigarettes are freely available at corner shops.

Really?

I am worried about the members of this expert panel. Are they smokers? If yes, how do they know what prompts people to quit? Are they non-smokers? If yes, how do they know what prompts people to quit? Are they former smokers? If yes, how did they quit when there was no prohibition on sale of loose cigarettes?

So, what exactly are these experts smoking? Can someone please tell me what makes them experts in the first place?

And what expert advice have they given the health ministry? The three the web news report tells me are: a) prohibit sale of loose cigarettes, b) increase age at which you can buy a cigarette, c) increasing the penalty for violating the law that prohibits smoking (in public places, etc), among others.

They also, presumably, concluded that more people take to smoking since loose cigarettes are easily available, making it easy on everyone's pockets. Now, do you need to set up a committee to come up with that? And do you need experts to recommend those recommendations?

Shorn of close monitoring and checking — and that, let's face it, simply is not possible given the quality and quantity of personnel policing us — this will mean two things: a) the corner paanwala selling a loose stick to you on the sly, and b) charging a bomb for it. For those who can afford, it will mean downgrading their taste (from a long cigarette to a "chhota") and buying the whole pack.

Of course, some may quit. But equally will not — as the health ministry's own statistics would show, despite cigarette prices increasing nearly 100 per cent in less than two years, a) sales have increased, and b) even the number of smokers have.

In a country where a voting card reaches well after eight months in the capital (ask the wife and me; the forms were filled duly up in February; and it came home last week), I am not quite sure this expert panel has the expertise to track those who quit smoking because the prices were raised through duty VAT and tax, etc and collate the numbers.

So, for thousands of people in the low-income bracket, this new prohibition on the sale of loose cigarettes means either a switch to non-filter cigarettes, or to beedi. And buying whole packets in both cases. Which, in whichever way you look at the issue from, means smoking more. And that, whichever angle you look at it from again, means more, and not less, chances of getting cancer.

So, as I get set for another half-marathon, what has the health ministry done on the advice of an expert committee? Increased chances of cancer for more people. There, even the irony is a drag.