Tobacco Control

Every year five millions people kills because of tobacco use in the world. Unless a progressive action is taken , a big statistical graph of deaths is expected that will be near about eight millions up to 2030. Therefore that can be controlled by the human efforts to aware and educate the peoples about the hazards of tobacco. This is time of great promise and challenge to ensure and incorporated the tobacco control policies and laws. With this aim TheNetwork for Consumer Protection has started its work in 2000 in Pakistan to control the tobacco use in the country.

TheNetwork for Consumer Protection has a long history of association with global movements for the control of smoking. From 2000 – 2007 the organization worked for protection and promotion of consumer rights under the Tobacco Free Initiative Pakistan (TFI-Pak) of WHO. The prime objectives of TFI-Pak were to make aware and educate the people of Pakistan about the hazards of tobacco, to strive against promotional tactics adopted by the tobacco industry, and to advocate the effective control of the government on promotion and sale of tobacco. After TFI-Pak, TheNetwork continued its anti smoking campaign under its consumer rights promotion project with DFID. It advocated for the effective implementation of existing anti-tobacco laws and incorporation of FCTC provisions in existing laws, represented Civil Society in Statutory Committees, engaged with government in its various initiatives, and monitored promotional activities of the tobacco industry.

During 2008-2010, TheNetwork under the Bloomberg Grant Initiative has focused for "Policy Advocacy and Stakeholders Awareness Building for Packaging Reforms to Reduce Demand for Cigarettes in Pakistan". This resulted Pakistan to join the select list of countries have effectively implemented pictorial health warnings on cigarette packs. At present, TheNetwork again commemorates its efforts for a tobacco free Pakistan by "Monitoring of Tobacco Advertising, Promotion, Sponsorships (TAPS) and Point of Sale Advertising".