Tobacco.org

• Anti-smoking laws being violated  

Smokers violating the law of complete ban on tobacco use at work and public places have still continued this practice in the federal capital. Citizens complained that after withdrawal of Statutory Rules and Orders (SRO), all public and work places have become smoke-free, therefore, smokers should not be allowed smoking or using tobacco in any other form in any public place.

They said individuals and offices are clearly violating the ordinance. They said complete implementation of law would help protect the health of non-smokers and make the smokers abiders of the concerned laws.

It is pertinent to mention here that earlier, all public and private offices were allowed to designate a separate place for smokers to smoke within office premises with adequate arrangements to protect the health of non-smokers.

However, such permission was being misused

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• Removal of lacunas in Anti-Smoking Ordinance urged 

Health experts believe that consumption of tobacco in Pakistan is becoming more and more alarming because its incidence is increasing among youth of Pakistan especially in schools, colleges and universities.

According to an estimate, Pakistanis smoke away Rs50 billion annually. Around 100,000 persons die every year in Pakistan due to diseases related to tobacco use. There are over 30 million smokers in Pakistan of which 37% are male while 9% female and about 1,200 youngsters take up smoking every day. Tobacco is the cause of at least 85% cases of lung cancer, cancer of mouth, throat, kidney, bladder and stroke, besides chronic bronchitis and emphysema.

Health experts say that Pakistan needs to reduce tobacco use to control non-communicable diseases and achieve the related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that can only be done by removing lacunas in current Anti-Smoking Ordinance because legislation and its implementation in true letter and spirit is the key to effective tobacco control.

"Markets like Pakistan are fair grounds for tobacco sales of big tobacco companies because of huge young and illiterate population, loose price controls, permission of sale of open or small packs of cigarettes, ignorance about toxic constituents and emissions of cigarettes and diverse health impacts; last but not the least due to lacunas in 'Prohibition of Smoking and Protection of Non-Smokers Health Ordinance 2002'," said Head of Community Medicine at Islamabad Medical & Dental College Professor Dr Muhammad Ashraf Chaudhry while talking to 'The News' on lacunas in the ordinance.

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National conference on tobacco control on October 28 

Zero implementation of pledges made by the government to control tobacco consumption in Pakistan on the occasion of World No Tobacco Day 2009 has propelled the civil society to shake the Tobacco Control Cell of the Ministry of Health out of its slumber by partnering with it for a national advocacy conference on tobacco control, which has been scheduled for October 28, should the fragile security situation permit.

Organised by TheNetwork for Consumer Protection under the banner of the Bloomberg Grant Initiative that seeks to reduce tobacco consumption in low and middle-income countries, the daylong conference aims to win the goodwill of the policy-makers to prioritise tobacco control on the government's agenda. The conference will present an overview of the dismal state of implementation of tobacco control laws in Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

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• Health ministry asked to implement anti-smoking laws 

The Ministry of Health has been asked to implement the prohibition of smoking and protection of non-smokers health ordinance in true spirit.

Citizens complained that though the government had withdrawn Statutory Rules and Orders (SRO) on smoking in designated areas, however the concerned laws are still being violated. According to them, the said SRO was withdrawn in order to protect the health of non-smokers and making the smokers abiders of the concerned laws, but there is no such implementing body to check the violation of such laws, they added.

They said, after withdrawal of SRO all public and work places have been declared smoke free and smokers couldn't smoke or use tobacco in any other form in any place of public work.However, they complained that smokers are still smoking in public places and offices while many public and private organizations and departments have allocated designated areas for smokers which is against the concerned laws.

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Tobacco - Pakistan - new research 

Euromonitor International's Tobacco in Pakistan report offers a comprehensive guide to the size and shape of the market at a national level. It provides the latest retail sales data (2002-2007), allowing you to identify the sectors driving growth. It identifies the leading companies, the leading brands and offers strategic analysis of key factors influencing the market - be the new legislative, distribution or pricing issues. Forecasts to 2012 illustrate how the market is set to change.

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Implement anti-smoking laws, experts ask government  

PESHAWAR: Expressing concern over violation of 'Prohibition of Smoking Ordinance 2002', health experts have pressed on the need for devising an efficient plan of action to ensure implementation of the said law to avoid tobacco hazards and have a tobacco-free society. This suggestion was unanimously underscored by experts in a one-day workshop on Development of Work Plan for Tobacco Control, arranged jointly by Federal Tobacco Control Cell, Provincial Health Department and WHO here Sunday. Experts and authorities from various sectors took part in the workshop. Shaheen Masood, Federal Cell for Tobacco Control DG, said the workshop was aimed at ensuring support of major stakeholders to accelerate efforts for controlling tobacco use and hammer out a plan of action for tobacco control. She said Pakistan was one of the most tobacco consuming countries in South Asia

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• EDITORIAL: Unhealthy business 

Once again the profit motive may trump the government in its efforts to improve the general health of the nation. The government had announced the introduction of pictorial health warnings on cigarette packs and had given the industry a six-month deadline to print them as from January 1st 2010; thus joining 30 other countries having similar warnings. . . .

It is reported that a series of meetings between industry representatives and senior officials of the health department has been held in an effort to slow down the implementation of the requirement for pictorial warnings on packets. . . .

We are a desperately unhealthy nation with a poor spread of primary healthcare services; and an even poorer spread of specialist oncology units. The causal linkage between smoking, cancers, and respiratory illness is well known. Our implementation of anti-smoking legislation has been patchy at best and as the tobacco producers are on the retreat in the developed world; they are increasingly focused on the undeveloped and developing world to extend their market footprint. We hope that the government will hold the line and not cave in to assorted pressures. This is sensible governance and clearly to the ultimate benefit of the entire population. Smoking kills - pictorial warnings on packets may lead to fewer of us dying of tobacco-related disease; and we have scant sympathy for the tobacco lobby.

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Tobacco lobby may delay pictorial warnings on cigarette packs  

The country's tobacco lobby may force the government to delay its decision over cigarette packs carrying pictorial health warnings, sources in the Health Ministry said on Sunday.

On World No Tobacco Day on May 31, the government had announced the introduction of pictorial health warnings on cigarette packs and had given the industry a six-month deadline to print them from January 1, 2010. However, soon after the announcement, the tobacco industry held a number of meetings with senior Health Ministry officials to attempt to reverse or delay the implementation of pictorial warnings. The ministry had started work on legislation for introduction of warnings on cigarette packs in consultation with the Ministry of Law, but the tobacco lobby is busy trying to delay the process.

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• The Taliban diversify into tobacco  

LAHORE // The smuggling of tobacco is helping to fuel the Taliban insurgency in Pakistan, according to analysts and officials. While the poppy trade still contributes nearly half of the funds funnelled to the Taliban - both in Afghanistan and Pakistan - officials now believe the militants are increasingly turning to other sources, including tobacco sales and smuggling, kidnappings, logging and mining.

"We believe tobacco has been second only to drugs as a source of finance to the Pakistani Taliban," David Kaplan, the editorial director of the US-based Center for Public Integrity (CPI), a non-profit organisation based in Washington, DC, said in a report last month.

With the US and Pakistan both engaged in fighting the Taliban, there is a growing consensus among officials that the only way to defeat the militants is to hit them where it hurts the most - their pockets.

But that is becoming increasingly difficult as the Taliban appear adept at switching sources of financing. . . .

But with efforts by the US to wipe out poppy farming in Afghanistan showing some success, and sanctions by the Pakistani government on charitable donations, the Taliban have been forced to look elsewhere for financial support.

According to the World Health Organization, cigarette and tobacco smuggling provides about $40bn a year to extremist groups, including the Taliban. Analysts inside Pakistan estimate the group receives about 20 per cent of its funding from counterfeit cigarette production and smuggling.

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No extension in deadline: Jakhrani 

The tobacco industry left no stone unturned here on Tuesday to obtain an extension in the 'lead-time' for printing of picture-based health warnings on cigarette packs and outers.

Their arguments, however, fell on deaf ears, as Minister for Health Mir Aijaz Hussain Jakhrani ordered the Tobacco Control Cell to 'immediately' finalise the Statutory Regulatory Order (SRO) for introduction of pictorial health warnings, and get it vetted by the Law Division, 'The News' learnt on good authority. "You will have to get picture-based health warnings printed within six months of the SRO being issued," Jakhrani is said to have clarified to representatives of the tobacco industry while concluding the meeting, which was also attended by Secretary Health Khushnood Akhtar Lashari, Director General Implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Shaheen Masud, and Asim Imdad, Talal Hakeem and Mehdi Imam from the tobacco industry.

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EDITORIAL: No smoking! 

The causal linkage between smoking cigarettes and cancer was established over fifty years ago. Smoking-related diseases cause millions of deaths worldwide annually and governments everywhere are gradually bringing in legislation to restrict the sale of tobacco products to minors and to limit the places where smoking is permitted. Legislation aimed at protecting the population from its own follies has fared poorly in recent years - remember the motorcycle helmet law? - and now we have the government once again trying to do something sensible by prohibiting smoking or the use of tobacco in any form in any place of public work or use. All very laudable and the usual suspects have clapped and cheered and congratulated the government saying this will help protect the health of non-smokers and better enforce existing laws - except that it won't. As with so much other well-intentioned legislation in Pakistan it will founder on the reefs of non-enforcement and apathy.

Not only is there little inclination towards compliance, there is equally little by way of enforcement. . . .

laws like this which are difficult - indeed virtually impossible - to enforce will only find compliance if they are backed up by long-term health education programmes. A wise government would invest in such - but enacting toothless laws changes nothing unless minds are turned in the direction of acceptance.

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Tobacco claims 100,000 lives a year in Pakistan 

Tobacco use claimed around 100,000 deaths annually in Pakistan and over half of the adult population are addicted in one form or the other, China’s Xinhua news agency reported, citing a local newspaper as saying today.

“Across the globe, nearly 5 million people died of tobacco-related diseases in 2008, which is more than tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and malaria combined,” said a senior official in Pakistan’s health ministry.

The usage of tobacco worldwide killed around 100 million people in the 20th century and if the current trend continues, there will be up to 1 billion deaths in the 21st century, the report said.

Pakistan after ratification of Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) promulgated the Prohibition of Smoking and Non-smokers Health Ordinance in 2002 but the legislation has not yet been effectively implemented for tobacco control.

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Govt withdraws SRO on smoking in designated areas  

The government withdrawing Statutory Rules and Orders (SRO) on designated smoking areas has totally banned smoking in any place of public work to protect the health of non-smokers.

A notification has been issued in this regarding rescinding concerned SRO in exercise of power conferred by section 5 of the prohibition of smoking and protection of non-smokers health ordinance, 2002.

After withdrawal of SRO, all public and work places have become smoke free and smokers will not allow smoking or using tobacco in any other form in any place of public work or use.

It is pertinent to mention here that earlier, all public and private offices were allowed to designate a separate place for smokers to smoke within office premises with adequate arrangements to protect the health of non-smokers.

However, such permission was being misused as it had become practice that smokers were using places in offices other than designated areas while many offices had failed to allocate designated places for smokers.

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• Government bans smoking in public 

ISLAMABAD: The government withdrew the Statutory Rules and Orders (SRO) on designated smoking areas, totally banning smoking in any place of public work to protect the health of non-smokers.

A notification has been issued in regards to rescinding the concerned SRO in an exercise of power conferred by section five of the prohibition of smoking and protection of non-smokers health ordinance, 2002.

After the withdrawal of SRO, the public will not be allowed to smoke or use tobacco in any form in any place of public work or use.

It is pertinent to mention here that earlier, all public and private offices were allowed to designate a separate place for smokers to smoke within office premises with adequate arrangements to protect the health of non-smokers.

However, such permission was being misused as it had become practice that smokers were using places in offices other than designated areas while many offices had failed to allocate designated places for smokers.

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Roll it & smoke it  

There are supposed to be smoke-free public places with smoking restrictions all over Pakistan. However, we all know that even the '100% smoke-free' facilities are not smoke-free in reality. The only implementation we ever witness is some sporadic advertisements in the print media by the government. Similarly, there are tax laws to increase prices of cigarettes and keep them out of reach of the youth. However, the market is flooded with local and smuggled brands of cheap cigarettes that have been put on racks with out paying any duties. The recent addition to such paper laws is the restriction of offering free stuff with cigarettes. . . . Such free incentives do entice the youth into smoking. In reality, though, these laws are only on paper.

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