India, April 5 -- Of the 180 parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, 138 countries define smokeless tobacco in their statutes while only 34 have so far reported levying a tax on such products, according to a recent study.
According to the study published in the Lancet Oncology journal on Thursday, just six countries check and regulate the content of smokeless tobacco products while only 41 countries mandate pictorial health warnings on them.
Describing the extent of the policy implementation gap in smokeless tobacco (SLT) control, researchers stated that there are only a handful of public awareness campaigns on the harms associated with tobacco so far and only 16 countries have implemented a comprehensive ban on smokel...