Tobacco.org

• Smokers can relax for now 

MANY Namibians are baffled by the Tobacco Products Control Act that was passed by Parliament in April.

Smokers and restaurant and club owners are unsure whether the smoking police are already on the prowl, ready to pounce at the first smell of a puff.

According to legal experts, however, it will take a lot of time before the smoking police will become a reality.

Although Namibia has officially created a law that severely restricts smoking and in future will forbid the advertising of tobacco products in any and all ways, it will take time before the law will become operational.

According to Windhoek lawyer Pieter de Beer, a number of steps have to be taken in order for the law to be enforced. De Beer says the implementation of the Tobacco Products Control Act will “require a lot of planning” which will delay the implementation of the law.

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Nudo Wants Evidence of New Tobacco Law Implementation 

The new law that bans smoking in public areas, which include pubs, coffee shops and restaurants, was gazetted a few weeks ago, but has not been implemented yet.

Arnold Tjihuiko of the Nudo party wanted to know why in Parliament yesterday.

"The law has been signed by President Hifikepunye Pohamba and it was gazetted and the Health Minister should determine a date when it becomes operational. This has not been done yet - why?" Tjihuiko asked Health Minister Richard Kamwi.

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• Government tightens screws on smoking  

writing is on the wall for tobacco marketing companies in Namibia regarding future regulations that would essentially prohibit sponsorship of any Namibian event, however charitable, by tobacco companies or distributors of tobacco products.

Health and Social Services Minister Richard Kamwi hinted at a new law during the commemoration of 'World No Tobacco Day' in Gobabis on Monday.

Kamwi said smoking among the young, especially women, is going up, hence the urgency to curb demand for tobacco in the country.

Once in force, the Tobacco Products Control Act No 1 of 2010 will black out marketing and promotion of tobacco products in the country, and restrict tobacco vending machines to restricted areas with an 18-year age limit.

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Namibia Observes World No-tobacco Day On May 31 

World No-Tobacco Day 2010 themes "Gender and Tobacco, with an emphasis on marketing to Women" will be nationally commerated in Namibia on May 31, this year, the Namibian Press Agency (NAMPA).

The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health and Social Services, Kahijoro Kahuure said this year's theme is selected in recognition of the effects of tobacco on the health of women, and will also be part of a global movement to make people's bodies free from tobacco smoke.

According to Kahuure, the activities of the day will give due recognition to the importance of controlling the epidemic of tobacco amongst women.

As part of the event, the Ministry of Health and Social Services will work hand-in-hand with the World Health Organisation (WHO)' Country Office in order to encourage the Namibian authorities to pay particular attention to measures that would protect women from lives of nicotine dependence.

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FOTOLELA: Namibia must demarket tobacco  

Unfortunately, in Namibia, 90 percent of smokers are also alcohol consumers, which is one of the serious health risks.

Many countries whose economies depend on tobacco products are left with no other option but to force governments to allow the production of tobacco by giving limited hectares of land to the farmers and quotas of raw tobacco to the manufacturers.

In the Namibian context, tobacco products are imported from other countries, which could give us proper control over maximum consumption and to avoid the most dangerous tobaccos products to enter Namibia. . . .

The Namibian policy-makers should have to look at it with "health concerned eyes" due to the fact that many diseases are caused by tobacco consumption, including lung cancer, bronchitis, etc.

The government is also urged to introduce tobacco day as a campaign, to show videos of people who are suffering from diseases caused by smoking.

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NC debates the dangers of smoking 

SMOKING came under fire in the National Council (NC) yesterday morning, with Swapo MP Aram Martin saying in addition to causing early deaths it also causes impotence in men.

He said according to recent research, people who start smoking at a young age and continue for two decades or more, die younger than those who ever smoke.

“It is not a joke, smoking is one of the biggest risk factors harming the development of the country,” said Martin, who is the councillor for Oshakati West constituency in the Oshana Region.

He was speaking during debate on the second reading of the Tobacco Products Control Bill in the NC.

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• Parliament passes Tobacco Bill 

THE National Assembly adopted the Tobacco Products Control Bill with one amendment on Thursday, the last sitting day of the year.

The Bill will now go to the National Council, the House of Review. In a moment of rare agreement between the opposition and the benches of the ruling Swapo Party, Members agreed to a small, but important change of words in Clause 3, which originally stipulated that a member of the umbrella labour movement NUNW, should sit on one of the supervisory boards to be created once the bill is promulgated.

Tsudao Gurirab of the official opposition party CoD proposed that the words should be changed to “a member of organised labour” and thus would avoid the name of a specific labour union.

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Namibia: Parliament Passes Tobacco Bill 

THE National Assembly adopted the Tobacco Products Control Bill with one amendment on Thursday, the last sitting day of the year.

The Bill will now go to the National Council, the House of Review. In a moment of rare agreement between the opposition and the benches of the ruling Swapo Party, Members agreed to a small, but important change of words in Clause 3, which originally stipulated that a member of the umbrella labour movement NUNW, should sit on one of the supervisory boards to be created once the bill is promulgated.

Tsudao Gurirab of the official opposition party CoD proposed that the words should be changed to "a member of organised labour" and thus would avoid the name of a specific labour union.

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Tobacco Control Bill tabled today 

THE long-awaited draft law to control tobacco products will be tabled in the National Assembly today, Health Minister Richard Kamwi informed the House yesterday afternoon.

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• Bill bans public smoking in Namibia 

THE Tobacco Products Control Bill tabled by Health Minister Richard Kamwi in Parliament bans "the smoking of tobacco in a public place, any outdoor public place or any area within a certain distance of a window, ventilation inlet, door or entrance".

This means that a hotel, restaurant or coffee shop would also fall under the definition of "pubic place", although the Bill does not mention these details. As usual, regulations will be drawn up once the Bill is passed, and then public spaces will be more clearly defined. Introducing the Bill yesterday afternoon, Minister Kamwi told the House that a 2004 study undertaken in Namibia, showed that 17 per cent of school children between the ages of 10 and 12 had admitted they had a smoking experience.

"This harmful behaviour is practiced by far too many children too early in their lives and damages to their health will only become evident many years after they started smoking." Municipalities will have to appoint inspectors to monitor and enforce compliance with the law once it comes into force.

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India agrees that Tobacco industry puts "pressure" to relax health policies  

The Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare revealed before the Central Information Commission that tobacco industry is putting "pressure" to relax the tobacco control policies (source: The Hindu, 14 November 2008).

The tobacco industry interference has times and again weakened and delayed the enforcement of the public health policies - for example, the tobacco industry, Indian Hotel Association and other allied agencies had filed more than 70 court cases against tobacco control policies in Indian courts in September 2008, and due to aggressive lobbying by such agencies, the Group of Ministers (GoM) formed earlier to review the pictorial warnings on tobacco products, diluted the pictorial warnings provision and postponed the implementation of pictorial warnings on tobacco products at least six-times.

The industry interference in public health policies certainly needs urgent attention to save lives otherwise it will continue to threaten to reverse the great advancements made in forging public health policies and implementing them.

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• Tobacco control law coming soon 

CABINET has given the Ministry of Health the green light to table the long-awaited Tobacco Products Control Bill in the National Assembly soon.

The Bill aims to make Namibia comply with the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which requires parties to "adopt and implement effective legislative, executive, administrative and/or other measures for preventing and reducing tobacco consumption, nicotine addiction and exposure to tobacco smoke".

The FCTC was adopted by the World Health Assembly in May 2003 in Geneva, Switzerland.

It is an international instrument aimed at controlling and reducing tobacco use and its negative effects on health, the economy and the environment, according to a press release from Cabinet this week. . . .

The Tobacco Products Control Bill is aimed at establishing a Tobacco Products Control Committee to advise the Minister on matters related to the use of tobacco products; to provide for the constitution, powers, duties and functions of the Committee; to provide for the reduction of demand for and supply of tobacco products; to provide for protection from exposure to tobacco smoke; to provide for the establishment of a fund for the control of tobacco products and to provide for related and incidental matters.

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Govt Clamps Down on Fake Liquor, Tobacco 

The ministry said it would remove and destroy stock of fake liquor or cigarettes from any business premises without any compensation to the business owner.

Those found with fake merchandise would be liable to pay tax on those products. There would be no mercy for third parties who bought merchandise from other wholesalers or agents.

"We have come across cigarette brands with too high tar levels and on occasions nicotine level five times higher than for medium ranged cigarettes.

This is life threatening," stated the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Finance Calle Schlettwein in a recent release.

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• Cigarette smuggler nabbed in Swakop 

POLICE are believed to have busted a prominent Swakopmund businessman after linking him to a haul of stolen cigarettes confiscated from a truck stopped by police at the Vioolsdrift Border Post.

Due to the sensitivity of the investigation, police refused to comment on reports about the arrest of at least one very prominent businessman from Swakopmund. The businessman was arrested in his home over the weekend where documents were apparently found, linking him to the cigarettes confiscated at Vioolsdrift. The harbour of Walvis Bay could now hold the key to uncovering one of the biggest smuggling syndicates in the history of Namibia.

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Cigarette smuggling ring cracked  

A CHANCE discovery of hundreds of boxes of cigarettes, hidden behind bags of charcoal, has tipped off Namibian Police and customs officers and their South African counterparts to a massive international smuggling syndicate that appears to stretch from Zimbabwe via Namibia to South Africa.

A vigilant South African customs official at Vioolsdrift on Wednesday night discovered several hundred cartons of Peter Stuyvesant and Pacific Blue cigarettes hidden under a single row of charcoal during a routine inspection of a Namibian truck headed for Cape Town.

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