Prohibition of importation, manufacturing and sale of Smokeless Tobacco (SLT) products: what is the Global Scenario?

摘要

Background Over the past 10 years, the WHO FCTChas served as a powerful tool to initiate, support, and advance national andglobal tobacco control efforts. However successof FCTC, but must not be allowed to conceal the fact that the job of tobaccocontrol is far from done.This paper examines the tobacco legislations of various countries ratifying WHOFCTC with an objective to ascertain the status of prohibition of importation,sale and manufacturing of smokeless tobacco products. In addition, experiencesof some countries that prohibit the sale, import or manufacture of theseproducts were also studied.Methods A literature search wasconducted using PubMed, Google scholar, tobaccocontrollaws.org databases forall articles from January 1st, 2005 to May 2017 with the following search termsin the title, abstract, or keywords: ´smokeless tobacco', 'snuff', 'chewing tobacco','dip tobacco', 'tobacco regulation', 'SLT ban', tobacco', or 'SLT import ban','SLT sale ban', 'SLT manufacturing'. In the first stage of screening, aninternal protocol was used to screen the titles and abstracts for all recordsaccording to a pre-defined selection criteria . In the second stage of searchthe WHO FCTC reports, previous CoP reports, WHO expert consultation reportswere scrutinized to obtain desired information.Results The sale of smokeless tobacco productsis prohibited in 42 Parties of the world that have ratified WHO FCTC and theirlaws are available in English language. Most of these bans arepartial. Ten countries have prohibited manufacturing SLT products and fivecountries have imposed ban on its importation. Theimpact of these bans has been different for different countries.Conclusions Acomprehensive tobacco control strategy with effective tobacco cessationprogramme needs to be formulated that assists SLT users in quitting. Inaddition, multi-sectoral efforts are needed for effective implementation of thebans imposed by Governments.