Tobacco sells in India despite ad ban

NEW DELHI, May 6 (UPI) -- Although tobacco ads are banned in India, Indian youth are smoking now more than ever, U.S. researchers said.

Researchers at the University of Texas in Houston study said they sought to learn why Indian sixth graders used three times the amount of tobacco eight graders used -- after tobacco advertising had been banned in 2004.

The study, published in the American Journal of Health Behavior, found 37 percent of the 11,642 sixth and eighth graders they surveyed in India had seen tobacco advertising in more than four places while 50 percent had seen advertising in one to four places -- despite the ban.

Study co-author Melissa Stigler notes tobacco company sponsored events, T-shirts and lifestyle stores are slipping through the cracks of the law. While smoking is banned in indoor malls, she says, "on a visit there shortly after the 2004 law was enacted, I witnessed a long line of college-age students lined up for one of the tobacco company air-conditioned mobile lounges, parked outside an upscale shopping mall."

The researchers described the link between advertising and tobacco use among the Indian youth to be alarming.