The high consumption of tobacco products by children under 18 is a warning that not enough is being done to spread awareness about health or enforce specific laws

Due to the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, tobacco companies in India may find it hard to lure children below the age of 18 into the tobacco habit. According to the Act, anyone who sells these products to underage children will face rigorous imprisonment up to seven years and a fine up to Rs. 1,00,000.

For long there has been a need to impose tougher punishment on those peddling dangerous substances to children, as existing legal provisions have been largely ineffectual.. Despite a ban on the sale of tobacco products to minors being in place since 2003, access to and availability of tobacco products was never a problem for children aged 13-15, according to the 2009-2010 Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS), as over 56 per cent of those polled “bought cigarettes in a store were not refused purchase because of their age”. Most 15- to 17-year-olds were also able to purchase tobacco products.

Increase in consumption levels

Easy access to and availability of tobacco has had a direct impact on consumption levels. The GYTS found that nearly 15 per cent of children in India as young as 13-15 years used some form of tobacco in 2009.

These startling figures on tobacco consumption by minors may still be a gross underestimate. By virtue of being school-based, the survey failed to take into account the most vulnerable population of children who are outside the schooling system and who are probably the earliest and most extensive users of tobacco.

The Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) report showed that nearly 10 per cent of children in India in the 15-17 age group consumed tobacco in some form. According to an August 2015 paper published in the journal Global Health Promotion, there are nearly 4.4 million children in India in the 15-17 age group who use tobacco daily.

The data highlight how successful tobacco companies have been in employing multiple strategies to continually entice children into using tobacco at a very early age. Tobacco companies offering free cigarettes to 13- to 15-year-old children

• Tobacco advertisements on billboards, the strategic placement of tobacco products inside shops.
• The use of advertisement boards that do not meet the point-of-sale display specifications are some of the strategies employed by companies.

That these strategies have been effective is evident: the average age at which there is daily initiation of tobacco in those above the age of 15 years is 17.8 years. This includes 14 per cent of those who smoke (cigarettes and bidis) and nearly 30 per cent of those who use smokeless tobacco.