Officials will find it difficult to implement ban on scented supari as vendors are mixing raw tobacco or betel nut pieces with sweet flavours.
About a week after a statewide ban was imposed on the sale of scented betel nut and tobacco, experts say that regulatory authorities will have to strive hard to implement the ban. This, is because people who are in the habit of chewing maawa and zarda will procure it anyway from paan vendors. Already, city paan vendors are devising ways to circumvent the ban.
An FDA official said that while there is a ban on preparation or sale of scented betel nut or tobacco, paan vendors are resorting to separately handing out raw tobacco and betel nut pieces along with flavours that are a mix of sugar, spices and menthol. “We will have to gear up surveillance to bring to book errant vendors if they are caught stirring mawa mix and other such products to be sold,” said FDA’s joint commissioner (food) Suresh Deshmukh.
Mumbai alone has 65,000 paan and bidi shops. Experts say that while a consumer cannot eat raw tobacco or betel nut, adding scents, perfumes and flavours to it has made the product alluring to people. However, not all additives and perfumes are ‘food-grade’ material.
Director of Healis Sekhsaria Institute of Public Health, Dr PC Gupta, says: “Additives like safrole induce addiction due to its amphetamine content. The toxic chemical is not fit for edible consumption but it is clandestinely added for flavour.”
In a notification issued on July 18, FDA cited 29 references from national and international scientific studies including research from Tata Memorial Hospital in Parel, Colaba-based Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and the state-run Government Dental College at CST to bolster the ban. The notification states: ‘Scented tobacco, supari, kharra and other products containing tobacco, arecanut (betel nut) cause immense damage to health...’
Doctors too have called for stringent checks to stop the products from finding their way into the black market. Many say that awareness of the harmful effects of ‘mouth-freshners’ can lead to decrease in consumption.
Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi, professor and head and neck cancer surgery, at Tata Memorial Hospital said: “The additives in raw tobacco are carcinogenic [cancer-causing]. Their consumption leads to cardiac arrest, reproductive health problems, gastro intestinal and respiratory diseases besides other problems,\” said Dr Chaturvedi.
Commissioner of FDA, Mahesh Zagade, said the flavouring and scenting of the products make them inviting to adults and children.
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