Sri Lanka: Prof. Carlo Urges To Expand the Smoking Ban

Source from:  The Nation (lk) 12/29/2014

The much awaited implementation of Pictorial Health Warnings (PHW) regulation on cigarette packets in Sri Lanka is due on January 01, 2015, following a court decision several months back. Hundred million people died in the 20th century due to tobacco smoking and Professor Carlo Fonseka said that the figure will rise to thousand million deaths in the 21st century, if the present smoking trends are not reversed.

Currently smoking ban is limited to ‘enclosed public areas'. Prof Fonseka suggests that the President should extend it to ‘all public areas', and take a step forward to protect non-smoking people of this country, especially the vulnerable groups - women and children. This would help to establish the real meaning of President's "Mathata Thitha" concept.

On World No Tobacco Day (May 31) in 2008, President Mahinda Rajapaksa delivering a message stated; "eradicating the threat of drug abuse was more difficult than eradicating terrorism." But he was determined and advised us to work to make this country "tobacco smoke-free", by 2015.

In 2006, the National Authority on Tobacco and Alcohol (NATA) was established and several important tobacco control measures were adopted from that year onwards. The number of cigarette manufactured in 2005 was 4827 million and in 2013, it declined to 4130 million. This is a significant decline.

However, when one compares our country with enormous progress that some other countries have made, we cannot be assured that we have taken all the key tobacco control measures. Pursuant to Article 11 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the international tobacco treaty, Parties to the Convention must require that all packages of tobacco products carry health warnings describing the harmful effects of tobacco use or other appropriate messages.

Though the Parties to the FCTC should have implemented the PHW regulation by the year 2008, due to administrative lapses, it was delayed in Sri Lanka. Implementation of PHWs is one of the six key strategies recommended by WHO as effective tobacco control measures - the MPOWER. It is a highly cost-effective means of health communication. Package warnings reach every smoker (and consumers of other tobacco products) every day.

Warnings are also seen by those around the consumers, such as family, friends and co-workers. Effective package warnings increase awareness of the health effects and reduce tobacco use. Consumers are entitled to be fully informed of the many health effects of tobacco products, and the package is the best way to do that.

The guidelines of Article 11 of the FCTC recognize that the effectiveness of health warnings increases with size. The greater the size, the more the results - to ensure better visibility and impact, picture warnings should be placed on both the front and back of the package should be placed at the top of the front/back, not the bottom, as provided in Article 11 guidelines. Enditem