Strategic and contested use of food laws to ban smokeless tobacco products in India: a qualitative analysis of litigation.

OBJECTIVE: To understand how food laws are used, contested and interpreted to ban certain forms of chewing tobacco in India.
METHODS: A qualitative study analysing all the tobacco-related litigation under the food laws in India. We used an inductive thematic analysis of the litigation contents.
RESULTS: The tobacco industry systematically deployed litigation to (1) challenge the categorisation of smokeless tobacco products as food, and hence, questioned the use of food laws for regulating these products; (2) challenge the regulatory power of the state government in banning tobacco products via the food laws; and (3) challenge the applicability of the general food laws that enabled stricter regulations beyond what is prescribed under the tobacco-specific law.
CONCLUSION: Despite facing several legal challenges from the tobacco industry, Indian states optimised food laws to enable stricter regulations on smokeless tobacco products than were feasible through use of a tobacco-specific law. © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2021. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.