Tobacco.org

LETTER OF THE DAY - Kill smoking habit before it kills you  

A man walked into a store holding his little girl's hand and continued to smoke his cigarette. The sales agent greeted him and asked him why he was smoking in the presence of the child. He replied, "A nuh nutt'n, everybody a do it: me a do it, her mama a do it, a nuh nutt'n. She betta get used to it!"

What do you think? Is it 'nutt'n' when, according to the World Health Organisation:

1. One out of every three cancer deaths is caused by tobacco use? . . .

Persons who need assistance to quit smoking and business operators who need assistance to establish a smoke-free environment policy for their business may contact the Jamaica Cancer Society at 927-4265.

You will not say "a nuh nutt'n" when you get sick. Tobacco control leads to cancer control and heart-disease control. Play your part, whether you are in Government, a resident or business person in Jamaica. You have the power to do so!

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The need for gender specific tobacco control strategies KAP survey findings on environmental tobacco smoke exposure among women in the reproductive age group. 

SUBJECTS AND METHODS:

A cross-sectional study with quantitative and qualitative components was designed to collect data from women in the child-bearing age. The sample comprised of persons from the two largest combined family planning and antenatal clinics in Kingston, Jamaica.

RESULTS:

The women surveyed had a fair level of knowledge about ETS health risks, negative attitudes to smoking in general, and most supported a ban on smoking in public places. Significant knowledge differences existed between young and older women and between smokers and non-smokers.

CONCLUSION:

Women with the highest level of knowledge were the non-smokers: of the low knowledge score group (current smokers), 50% were in the 15-24-year age range. There is a need for more public education on smoking and the consequences of environmental tobacco smoke exposure on children's health.

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• Jamaica: Not giving up on tobacco  

TOBACCO FARMERS are raking in millions of dollars due to a spike in demand for the product on the market over the last two years, a Rural Agriculture Development Authority (RADA) survey has found.

This is not good news for the Jamaican government, which has turned a blind eye to an industry that it should be phasing out in conformity with an international treaty.

At a time when the Government should be providing alternative sources of employment for tobacco farmers been under the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the farmers, lured by big bucks, are shooting up just about everywhere.

After declining to near extinction in the 1990s, the 2011 survey found that tobacco cultivation has, over the last two years, begun to blossom in rapid proportions. Investigators from RADA have identified and interviewed a number of tobacco farmers in Jamaica using GPS mapping and data analysis and cross-referencing in carrying out their task.

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NCDs account for most deaths in Jamaica in '08 — WHO report  

AN estimated 68 per cent of deaths that occurred in Jamaica in 2008 were attributable to non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which results primarily from cardiovascular diseases, tobacco use, physical inactivity and unhealthy diets.

The statistics are contained in the first Global Status Report on Non-Communicable Diseases, compiled by the World Health Organisation (WHO), and show cardiovascular diseases accounting for 32 per cent of the deaths in the island, while 21 per cent of all deaths were due to communicable, maternal, perinatal and nutritional conditions. . . .

As it relates to behaviour risk factors, the WHO global status report on non-communicable diseases showed that 17 per cent males and eight per cent females smoked tobacco . . .

"Addressing NCDs is critical for global public health, but it will also be good for the economy; for the environment; for the global public good in the broadest sense. If we come together to tackle NCDs, we can do more than heal individuals -- we can safeguard our very future," he said.

NCDs accounted for an estimated 84 per cent of the deaths in Cuba, 82 per cent in Barbados, 78 per cent in Trinidad & Tobago, 66 per cent in Guyana and 41 per cent in Haiti in 2008.

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• Tobacco worries - Jamaica in treaty contravention  

The Jamaican Government seems set to face censure at a high-level international meeting which starts tomorrow in New York over its perceived failure to stand by its international obligations to stem tobacco cultivation in the country.

A Rural Agriculture Development Authority 2011 study has found that Jamaica is in breach of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) to moderate cultivation, as hundreds of tobacco farms have sprung up all over the country.

Health Minister Rudyard Spencer is strenuously seeking to fend off accusations ahead of the United Nations meeting, which he is set to attend, that the Government lacks the political will to abide by the treaty.

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LETTER: What is the gov't doing about tobacco cultivation?  

This is an open letter to Health Minister Rudyard Spencer.

Over the last few months, I have listened and observed throughout the media the debate over tobacco control and the pending passage of new legislation to restrict smoking and control the distribution and the marketing of tobacco and its related products. These new measures, according to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, are aimed at providing safeguards to the individual's health and protecting the environment.

The FCTC convention stipulates as well that the government take proactive steps to discourage the growing of tobacco and provide alternatives means of livelihood to farmers who would be so displaced. However, the facts indicate widespread tobacco growing across Jamaica.

In fact, a recent study by RADA on tobacco cultivation in Jamaica gives rise to a number of issues. The study reveals that "although tobacco farming has gone on in Jamaica for a long time, the large-scale commercial production of tobacco almost disappeared during the early 1990s. In the past two or three years, however, there has been resurgence in the cultivation of this crop". It went on to estimate that a total of 310.5 acres of land in several parishes are now in tobacco production with an estimated annual farm-gate value of $397 million. . . .

The government seems passive and Jamaica continues to be a non-compliant signatory, particularly in this area of tobacco growing. I wonder if the chairman of the Heart Foundation of Jamaica and the Jamaica Coalition for Tobacco Control, Dr Knox Hagley, has a view on this.

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Health minister to pursue smoking ban  

Health Minister Rudyard Spencer has signaled that he is to take a bill to Parliament, which will see to a ban on smoking in public places.

The Opposition and members of the medical fraternity have chided the Government for its delay in enacting the legislation.

They have noted that Jamaica is in breach of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Use, to which the country is a signatory.

But Spencer said the proposed legislation has now been drafted, and has been submitted to the Cabinet for deliberation.

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• U-Roll'em: A new type of cigarette venture 

Jamaicans for decades have bought cigarettes by the stick and by the carton at corners shops, from streetside sellers, and a multiplicity of businesses that make money off a habit that is hard to kick.

What has been absent up to now is a dedicated retail channel focused solely on smokers, and selling cigarettes alone. That changed in July when the first U-Roll'em shop was opened in Kingston by a Jamaican couple resident in Florida.

It gets better. Customers get to hand-roll their own sticks - customise their own products - in an extension of the 'grabba' market, which offers the same options but in a more informal way. It's not unusual for some smokers, for example, to season their grabba packets with marijuana.

The two Jamaicans behind the cigarette retail shop venture, Damian and Susan McKenzie, have a more sophisticated operation than the grabba trade, however. The husband and wife team owns 51 per cent and 49 per cent of the business, respectively.

The McKenzies are principals in the Palm Beach, Florida-based Tobacco Central LLC, which has set a target of 29 Caribbean countries to roll out their network of RYO - roll your own - retail outlets stocked with tobacco filling-station machines under a distributorship arrangement with owners of the RYO technology, Ohio-based RYO Filling Station Machine LLC. The American company also supplies the tobacco through a network of international sources.

The McKenzies, who migrated from Jamaica two decades ago, say that they have been pursuing different ventures for 20 years - putting them in a group dubbed 'serial entrepreneurs'

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Legislation will not result in shutdown of tobacco industry 

We write in response to recent articles published on the matter of tobacco control and legislation. It is very important for the public to understand that the appeal from advocates such as ourselves to the government to pass legislation arises from the fact that government continues to delay fulfilling its obligations as outlined in the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Studies have repeatedly shown that the measures contained in the FCTC have resulted in a reduction of Non-Communicable Diseases.

The Government of Jamaica ratified the FCTC in 2005 and added its voice to the 2007 Caricom Heads of Government Port-of-Spain Declaration in which regional governments pledged to accelerate efforts to combat the tobacco epidemic. . . .

Years from now, current nicotine addicts, unable to work regularly or not at all, suffering from strokes, various cancers and other health problems due to tobacco smoking, will be correct to ask why governments and those who knew the risks did not do more to educate and warn them about the long-term health hazards.

Along with other advocates, we ask the minister of health to tell the country why the FCTC health-saving measures continue to be placed far down on the legislative agenda.

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LETTER: Law must balance right of smokers and non-smokers 

This is an open letter to Minister of Health Ruddy Spencer:

The Jamaica Gasoline Retailers Association wishes to express its opinion on an issue which has been the subject of debate in the media - the call for the government to enact tobacco control legislation.

The JGRA would first like to point out that it does support the need for pragmatic regulation of cigarette sales and smoking by extension. As an organisation established 60 years ago and consisting of hundreds of service stations across the island, of which most, if not all sell cigarettes, we strongly believe we have a vested interest in voicing our opinions on tobacco control legislation that would seek to regulate how cigarettes are sold in these outlets. . . .

Representing from a position of knowledge, it would be remiss of us to not mention the high standards of responsible marketing and distribution of Carreras Limited. The company's implementation of a retail access prevention programme, geared at restricting cigarette sales to minors in retail outlets that sell cigarettes across the island, is a demonstration of this high standard of responsible marketing and distribution. . . .

Minister, we maintain that the choice to smoke rests squarely in the hands of an adult, who is already aware of the risks associated with smoking. Consequently, any piece of legislation to regulate smoking should balance the right of both smokers and non-smokers. We believe that where such balance is found, compliance will be achieved.

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CHEN: Smoking: the right to choose  

Choice comes with responsibility. The government should choose policies that create an environment that facilitates healthy lifestyles, such as smoke-free environments that would discourage smoking. For those who wish to stop smoking, the Heart Foundation of Jamaica, the other member organisations of the Jamaica Coalition for Tobacco Control and the National Council on Drug Abuse stand ready to assist. We welcome the announcement by the minister of health on June 6, 2011 that the long-awaited tobacco-control legislation, which includes the banning of smoking in public places, will be tabled in Parliament within three weeks. We look forward to continued policy "choices" that promote healthy lifestyles.

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• Tobacco Bill to go before Parliament 

AFTER more than a decade in the making, the Tobacco Bill -- which seeks to control the use of tobacco in the island -- is soon to be put before Parliament.

Health Minister Rudyard Spencer says the chief parliamentary counsel is now making final amendments to the document and he expects it to be tabled in Parliament within the next three weeks.

Spencer made the disclosure Monday as he addressed a high-level breakfast forum on chronic diseases and physical activity at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, where it was noted that that tobaccos use, specifically cigarette smoking, was a leading risk factor for non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

Provisions of the Bill include a total ban on tobacco advertising, sponsorship and promotion, the prohibition of the sale of tobacco products to minors and a clamp down on the illicit trading of tobacco products.

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LOWRIE-CHIN: Playing with people's lives  

Heart Foundation chief Deborah Chen was deeply concerned as she walked us through the papers last Tuesday. On World No-Tobacco Day, our local cigarette purveyor scored a headline complaining about high taxes and the Ministry of Health almost apologetically announced that they would be "discouraging" smoking in public places - no mention at all of a ban. Deborah said it was a myth that this would adversely affect business at clubs and bars as extensive studies have proved that this is not so. In fact, some had pointed to an increase in business after the ban had been imposed.

For Deborah, the late John Maxwell, this paper's deeply missed columnist, is a hero. John who had been a smoker for most of his life, died last year after a valiant struggle with lung cancer. Not wanting anyone else to suffer his fate, John has given the Heart Foundation of Jamaica permission to use his photograph and personal warning in their campaigns.

Jamaica, like China, is a signatory to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control but unlike China, has not proceeded to ban smoking in public indoor locations. . . .

So why have the Jamaican authorities not implemented this ban on smoking in public places? Do they not know that young children who are exposed to cigarette smoke suffer from respiratory diseases and cognitive impairment? Is one government ministry going to build fancy schools while another government ministry hobbles the ability of our young children before they can even arrive in the schoolyard? If we really believe that life is precious and our children deserve to be protected, we should address this serious delay and fully adopt the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

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GREENE: Issue: Jamaica not conforming to tobacco-control rules 

The Government of Jamaica should withdraw from the World Health Organisation's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, or the convention should ask them to withdraw.

It has never and will never conform to its guidelines. Eye-catching advertising signs can still be seen along roadways promoting tobacco smoking.

Don't bother to write to the Ministry of Health about this. No answer at all. So what to do? Just know Jamaica is caught in the trap of the gifts of the cigarette company in Jamaica and we are reversing as a Third-World country in this regard. Jamaica is also thinking strongly about the poor farmers planting tobacco for the cigarette company.

As cigarette smoking is pushed out of the developing world, the Third World is being tricked by cigarette companies' gifts. . . .

What is the head of the Anti-Smoking Unit doing at the Ministry of Health? You tell me.

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LETTER: Think carefully about the smoking ban  

I am writing this letter to share my views on the issue of banning tobacco. I am a vendor in the Half Way Tree area, and I sell fast-going items such as banana chips, other snacks, cigarettes, etc. . . .

It is said that smoking can kill but many other things out there are killing people now. The people who smoke know the consequences, yet they still smoke. Look at it this way, when I sell cigarettes I can sell a lighter, and that is a little extra dollar right there. When I sell my stock, it allows me to send my three children to school and pay my bills. So if they ban tobacco, it is like the system is putting me out of work. I am not a rich man, but I pay my taxes. I am sure that the government benefits from taxes, so they cannot just ban smoking like that because it is a source of income for many other vendors like myself.

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