Uganda: MPs Draft Bill to Regulate Tobacco Use

Source from:  Daily Monitor  11/30/2012

In a bid to control tobacco growing and smoking, legislators are pushing for a law to regulate the tobacco demand in the country.

The legislators, Dr Chris Baryomunsi (Kinkizi West) and David Bahati (Ndorwa West), with the backing of legislators on the Parliamentary Forum on Non-Communicable Diseases, have drafted the Tobacco Control Bill, 2012, which, if passed into law, would provide for the price increase on tobacco products through taxing them highly as an intervention in reducing demand for tobacco.

While presenting the draft Bill during a workshop for the Parliamentary Forum on Non Communicable Diseases in Kampala yesterday, Mr Bahati, said tobacco producers and companies would be compelled to prevent messages that induce people to begin using tobacco, especially among the youths. The law would also regulate the contents, quantities and emissions of tobacco products.

Government would be compelled to dedicate a proportion of the taxes from tobacco to fund the tobacco control programmes. Enditem