Tobacco use claims around 100, 000 deaths annually in Pakistan and over half of the adult population are addicted in one form or the other, local newspaper The Nation reported Tuesday.

"Across the globe, nearly 5 million people died of tobacco- related diseases in 2008, which is more than tuberculosis, HIV- AIDS and malaria combined," said a senior official in Pakistan's heath ministry.

Use of tobacco worldwide killed around 100 million people in the 20th century and if the current trend continues, there will be up to 1 billion deaths in the 21st century, the report said.

Pakistan after ratification of Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) promulgated the Prohibition of Smoking and Non- smokers Heath Ordinance in 2002 but the legislation has not yet been effectively implemented for tobacco control.

The Pakistani government on Sept. 6, 2008 issued an order containing guidelines for the establishment of designated smoking areas. However, no other decision of the heath ministry had faced as much media criticism as it, according to the report.

The official said that the health managers had announced immediate rollback of the controversial order and making the printing of pictorial heath warnings on cigarette packets and with effect from Jan. 1, 2010. The government was laudable despite pressure by the tobacco industry that used all time-gaining tactics, the official said.

However, mere announcement was not enough and the government should take some steps for its implementation also, he said. "If the ordinance promulgated in 2002 was implemented effectively, we could be able to save our young generation from becoming the victim," he said.

It is the best practice for a country like Pakistan to print pictorial health warnings on cigarette packets where literacy rate is very low, so people need to be warned of the health risks of smoking through graphic representations.

Tobacco industry, however, has a lot of clout and hampering comprehensive tobacco control reforms as suggested under FCTC.

The civic bodies and health experts working against the tobacco use believe that tobacco industry is out to block the government's decision on fresh pictorial health warnings.

They say that the tobacco companies in other countries can and have implemented picture warning requirements in as short as six months after notifications. Uruguay, Singapore, Brazil and Canada are some of these countries. Venezuela has just updated warnings and gave the industry three months to comply.

Wagar Ahmed, CEO of the Network for Consumer Protection of Pakistan said the government should realize the hard reality that tobacco use was considered as one of the biggest public heath threats, the world has ever faced.

He said though there were anti-smoking laws, which clearly banned the advertisement and sale of cigarettes within 50 meters but one could easily find tobacco advertisement posters near different educational institutes.

(Xinhua News Agency July 28, 2009)