Maha bans pan masala, will celebrities take cue?

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 20

All eyes are on celebrity endorsements of flavoured tobacco products after Maharashtra today notified ban on the manufacture and sale of any form of flavoured tobacco, including scented areca nut and flavoured pan masalas.

Ace actors have been marketing flavoured pan masalas and scented supari (areca nut). Some such endorsements have involved Shah Rukh Khan (Pan Vilas Super Dews); Ajay Devgn (Vimal Pan Masala); Akshay Kumar (Baba Ilaichi); Govinda (Pan-e-Shahi Pan Masala), Saif Ali Khan (Pan Bahar Pan Masala); and Priyanka Chopra (Rajnigandha Silver Pearls).

Devgn continues with Vimal Pan Masala ad and other actors have at some point endorsed flavoured pan masalas and supari. Oncologists are hoping the ban will lead celebrities to drop tobacco endorsements but there is a legal catch. “Maharashtra is the only state to ban scented supari, flavoured pan masala, etc. No other state has done this so far. So advertisers can always argue that they are not in violation of the law if they engage celebrities for endorsements nationally. They say the ban is in force in Maharashtra and product marketing outside Maharashtra is legal,” says Pankaj Chaturvedi, oncologist, Tata Memorial Hospital, adding celebrities should themselves consider the matter as areca nut is a known carcinogen. 

Maharashtra earlier banned gutkha in 2013 after a Supreme Court order and other states followed suit. But chewing tobacco makers who would sell premixed gutkha before 2013 later started selling gutkha ingredients in separate sachets. By doing so, they ducked the gutkha ban law.