Last month, the Delhi government officially wrote to many stars, including Ajay Devgn, Shah Rukh Khan, Govinda and Saif Ali Khan, not to promote pan masala products as they contain areca nuts, a potential cancer causing agent. “You are the role model for youngsters. They watch you and your lifestyle and habits and try to adopt it. These advertisements attract the vulnerable population,” said the letter from the health department. The only one who responded positively was Sunny Leone, who immediately said she would not sign any more contracts involving ad campaigns for such products. The Advertising Standards Council of India says that, while pan masala and supari are not banned, “the ASCI code does not permit the use of celebrities in advertisements of products which by law require health warning on its pack or cannot be sold to minors.” It considers ads for pan masala to be a surrogate for gutka and advertising for silver coated elaichi the same for pan masala. In almost all lab tests done on pan masala products, a pouch contained as much tobacco as one cigarette. Successive governments have increased the tax on cigarettes in the annual budget, the so-called sin tax. Former health minister Ambumani Ramadoss demanded a 200 per cent tax on tobacco items, a sin tax he could not implement while in office. He did, however, succeed in introducing a smoking ban in 2008 which covered all public places. The Ramadoss effect has resulted in the crass depictions at multiplexes of the effects of smoking, but pan masala has escaped such attention. The fact that the pan masala industry is worth between Rs 15,000 and 2,000 crore may have something to do with it, but it also reflects the kind of money that celebrities earn from endorsing such products. And although Sunny Leone is branded an ex-porn star, she is the only one who has had the sense to accept that what she was endorsing was a potential health hazard and then decided to quit, literally.