CONSUMER CONCERNS…Tobacco control legislation could be in force by year-end

Jun 12, 2016 News

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PAT DIAL
On May 31, last, “World No Tobacco Day” was commemorated worldwide. The Guyana Consumers Association has been calling for many years now for the Tobacco Control Legislation. During the tenure of Dr Leslie Ramsammy as Minister of Health there was a great deal of activity in this direction. Dr Ramsammy is one of the most enthusiastic and knowledgeable advocates of tobacco control in the Region. Consumerism throughout the Caribbean had enjoyed his support on the issue.
Tobacco use is one of the greatest health afflictions of modern life. In the Developed Countries, Governments and NGO’s have been assiduously battling against it by the use of Legislation, Education and the Law Courts. Their efforts have been successful. Today, tobacco use in the Developed World has declined and continues to decline. The tobacco companies now find their profits in the Developed World are also declining and so are now focusing their main marketing activities in the Developing Countries.
Four years ago, the United States Food and Drug Administration published a list of 93 harmful or potentially harmful chemicals found in the use of tobacco products and in tobacco smoke. Those chemicals, when ingested or inhaled over time, cause serious diseases which are life-threatening and greatly impair health.
Such diseases include heart diseases of many types, breathing and respiratory diseases including chronic airway obstruction; lung cancer and cancer of the mouth and lips and pharynx; leukemia; kidney and urinary organs; liver and stomach ailments. Smokers and other users of tobacco products do not realize they are being afflicted with such diseases since they develop gradually and when they do realize it, it is sometimes irreversible or too late.
Ailments caused by tobacco use are not only distressing to individual sufferers but are also a social burden in that worker productivity is reduced and added costs are imposed on the health services. It is often these social burdens which stimulate many governments to act against tobacco use by legislation and other measures since they realize that what is gained by tobacco revenues is far outweighed by the social and financial costs caused by tobacco use.
Most of the main Caribbean countries have now got modern tobacco legislation in place. For many years now, Guyana has had such legislation in draft but for one reason or another, such draft legislation was never passed into Law. It does seem that now at last, this legislation will be in the Statutes by year-end.
We understand that little or no changes have been made to the original draft which forbade smoking in enclosed places and public transport and public places; banning tobacco promotion and sponsorship; banning cigarette-selling to and by minors; and ensuring that cigarette packages carry clear warning pictures on 50% of their surface. It has also been recommended that taxes on tobacco products be increased. We understand that the Trinidad and Tobago legislation is stronger.
There is also a CARICOM standard in force in several CARICOM states. This standard has a large number of warning photographs which cigarette packages must carry on 50% of their surface. In Guyana we are about to adopt the standard as a mandatory national standard and it is hoped that this will be effectuated very soon. Since all cigarettes and tobacco products sold locally are produced abroad in jurisdictions where graphic warnings on packages are already mandatory, the local distributors should have very light expenses in changing to boxes and packages with graphic warnings.
Five or six years ago, DEMTOCO, the main local distributor, estimated that the change-over to packages with graphic warnings would have cost US $1.2 million and would have negatively affected their profitability in any one year.
Today, the situation is different, and DEMTOCO is prepared for all eventualities. About two years ago, the then Regional Director, Ms Cavil de Zavala, who presided at the Annual General Meeting of the Company, when asked by a shareholder how the Company would deal with these attacks on the Tobacco Industry and on the Company’s profitability, replied that such attacks were worldwide and had been going on for some time but that the Tobacco Industry and her Company have developed ways of meeting all such challenges.
Though the Guyana Consumers Association, as the major consumer advocate in the country, feels that the draft bill could be strengthened, the Association thinks it preferable that bill, after debate, should be passed into Law, rather than to risk further delay in the search for perfection.

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