ISLAMABAD, May 26: Every year 100,000 people die of smoking related diseases in Pakistan but the government has failed to implement the Prohibition of Smoking Ordinance 2002.

An informed source told Dawn that reason for the lukewarm interest of the government towards strict implementation of the law was that it earns approximately Rs38.5 billion each year from the tobacco industry alone. The huge amount does not include the amount that the provinces were charging on tobacco productions. Directly or indirectly over 0.2 million families were dependent on the tobacco sector.

Like every year, No-Tobacco Day on May 31 would again remind the people how flagrantly the prohibition of smoking in public places - offices, hospitals, educational institutions and transport - were being violated.

The law was promulgated in October 15, 2002 amidst media hype and fanfare.

No tobacco day was organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) throughout the world under a framework called FCTC (framework convention on tobacco control). The law also prohibited sale of cigarette to minors and within 50 meters of the educational institutions while the cigarette (printing and warning) ordinance obligated to print health warnings on the cigarette packs. It also restricted promotional campaigns of the tobacco industry.

The law also imposed a penalty upto Rs1,000, extendible to Rs100,000 in case of second offence for violating the law. Punishment, in certain cases, also suggested three months imprisonment.

Any authorized official or a police officer, not below the rank of sub-inspector, under the law could eject a person who contravened the provisions of law from any place of public work, the law said.

Different watchdogs believed that 16 per cent children under the age of 17 years in Pakistan were habitual smokers. Fifty-two per cent of juvenile smokers were studying in colleges while 48 per cent went to school; 91.8 per cent of juvenile smokers were aware of different hazards of smoking and 78 per cent of them had tried to give up smoking but could not do so.

According to statistics, total tobacco consumption among men were 40 per cent while eight per cent in women; 46 per cent youth used tobacco.

Each year 4.9 million people died of smoking in the world and health experts believed that if the rate continued tobacco would become the biggest killer by 2030 - with a toll of 10 million each year. This meant that after every 6.5 seconds a person would die due to smoking.

Smoking was also responsible for cancers of lung, oral cavity, oesophagus, larynx, bladder, pancreas, kidney, stomach and blood.

A recent study has suggested that the total cigarette production in Pakistan was about 71 billion sticks a year, of which the legal cigarette production was approximately 77 per cent. Rest of 23 per cent was illegal production due to which the government suffered Rs9.2 billion losses annually.