PHA-Exchange> Tobacco law

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Tobacco law  uncertain
The New Nation, Saturday, July 19, 2003, M. Jahangir Alam


The fate of tobacco control bill in the country appears uncertain due to 
dilly-dallying process in passing the law. The government signed last May 
the international anti-tobacco campaign in Geneva, concerned sources 
said.Earlier in 2002, the draft of the act was completed and discussed 
among the decision makers. It was also discussed in the cabinet meeting in 
last March. However, some of the ministers allegedly opposed the passage of 
the bill in the cabinet meeting.

According to the sources the meeting finally decided to pass an executive 
order to control tobacco use. The meeting made some recommendations to 
reduce the use of tobacco by the people. The recommendations included 
banning of smoking in public places and inside public transport, and 
censoring media advertisements on tobacco related issues. The draft of the 
bill was also sent to the Ministry of Law for vetting whether there was any 
legal deficiency in it or not.

The law ministry said it  should be a complete law, otherwise it was not 
possible to execute it under an executive order. Since then, the progress 
in the passage of the bill has slowed down.Those engaged in anti-tobacco 
campaign in Bangladesh said since Health Minister Dr. Khandker Mosharraf 
Hossain himself signed the memorandum on behalf of the country on 
international tobacco control strategy made at the Framework Convention on 
Tobacco Control (FCTC) in the 56th World Health Assembly held in Geneva on 
May 21 which the health minister chaired, there should have been no problem 
for the government to pass and implement the law now.Anti-tobacco 
campaigners in the country, including ADHUNIK and Bangladesh Anti-tobacco 
Alliance (BATA) have chalked out elaborate programmes to press the 
government to pass the tobacco control act immediately.
As a part of its programmes, BATA will organise an anti-tobacco dialogue at 
the CIRDAP auditorium on July 26.Talking to this correspondent, Quazi 
Faruque, General Secretary of the Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB) 
said media has its social responsibility to play a proactive role in 
anti-tobacco campaign. He urged the authorities concerned to take necessary 
measures to censor the aggressive tobacco related advertisements through 
media, the  electronic media in particular.

Quazi Faruque said the average expenses in health sector per capita are 
increasing due to the increase of smokers. Because, smoking not only harms 
the smokers, it pollutes environment apparently and creates health hazards 
for other people for which they have to spend money. He stressed the need 
for building social awareness against the use of tobacco. He said, ''We 
should start anti-tobacco campaign right from our families and eventually 
it should turn into social movement.

 He said, "It is a shame when the people of the western countries are 
giving up smoking, but in developing countries like ours the number of 
smokers are increasing. Some profit making businessmen of our country are 
even promoting smoking and other means of tobacco use simply to make money." 
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