The Tobacco Control Act

Jul 30, 2017 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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The prohibition of tobacco in public indoor places and in certain public outdoor places was inevitable. Guyana has only been delaying the unavoidable; the world has long been moving in this direction given the concerns of the effects of smoking on the health of non-smokers.

The PPPC began this process since 2005 and APNU+AFC has hurriedly rushed legislation through the National Assembly. As a consequence it is now facing criticisms about the lack of adequate consultations on the issue.

There was no harm in having detailed consultations. It would have avoided the unpopularity which the government will now face. Not about the ban on smoking in certain places, but about the effects on the vending of cigarettes and the draconian penalties which will now be imposed.

People are generally aware of the negative effects on their health of second hand smoke – smoke which comes from someone else. This is why people tend to remove themselves from places where people are smoking.

Public smoking is not a major problem in Guyana because of this fact. People openly express their disapproval when others light up a cigarette near them. They either say something or move away, or both. Smokers therefore know that there is disgust over smoking near to others.

A few weeks ago, a woman was chain-smoking at one of the popular watering holes in the city. She seemed oblivious to the effects of her smoking on others. But not for long, because the other patrons began to gravitate further away from her, leaving her isolated from the rest of the patrons. In the end, it sunk in that she was doing something which the rest of the patrons were not pleased with and therefore she knew she had to leave.

It is for this reason that the penalties imposed for smoking in public places are draconian. To impose a fine of $200,000 for violating the country’s smoking laws is excessive and will encourage further corruption within the law enforcement community.  Corrupt police officers and customs officials are going to be very happy with the passage of the recent legislation.

Penalties should be strong enough to serve as deterrent, but not to promote corruption. The penalties in the Tobacco Control Act are so punitive that they will have the same effect as traffic fines. Instead of deterring violations, they encourage institutional corruption.

The burden of the penalties falls disproportionately and unfairly on businesses. Unlike the seat belt law, where the person who fails to buckle up is fined, in the case of cigarette smoking, it is the owner of the business in which smoking takes place that will face a possible $9M fine. This will encourage massive corruption, because there is no pub or bar in Guyana, which can stay afloat if they are hit with such a fine. All that some corrupt police and customs officers have to do is to send a decoy into a place, such as a toilet, to smoke, and then threaten the owner with a nine million-dollar fine unless he or she pays up. The APNU+AFC government cannot be serious about such a penalty.

Fine the smoker, not the owner of the place where the person is smoking. What about if someone is found smoking in a government ministry? Will the government be fined or will the person be fined? The law is unfair, the penalties are draconian and the burden of those penalties is not rightly assigned.

The Tobacco Control Act impacts harshly on vendors. It prohibits them from selling cigarettes other than in packets. But the majority of smokers in Guyana buy cigarettes loose. They go to the vendors and they order one or two cigarettes. They do this because this is what they can afford, and most do it because it is their own way of controlling their smoking.

If they have to buy a whole packet of cigarettes, they may not be able to afford it, and if they can, it means they are most likely to smoke more than if they were allowed to buy the cigarettes loosely. The ban on the sale of ‘loose’ cigarettes will therefore increase rather than discourage smoking.

But this also will promote massive corruption. The majority of Guyanese alive may be too old to remember the hard guava season days, under the PNC, when cigarettes being sold at road corners were seized by the authorities and those selling it were arrested.

Local tobacco production was insufficient to meet local demand. And the importation of cigarettes was prohibited because of the foreign exchange crisis. And so the sale of cigarettes was pushed underground and the rampant corruption of the police and customs which exists today was more deeply entrenched.

The measures being now implemented will push the sale of ‘loose’ cigarettes underground. And the customs and police are going to become more corrupt.

The government, with the draconian penalties and prohibitions that it has imposed with the passage of the Tobacco Control Bill,  may marginally reduce smoking in public places, but will increase, on a massive scale, official corruption. The cost of that corruption will outweigh whatever benefits are had from the reduction in smoking.

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