Tobacco.org

• Smoke at home  

SMOKERS will only able to enjoy their cigarettes in the comfort of their own home.

This according to Minister of Health Jerry Narace during a press briefing to update the public about the amendment to the 2009 Tobacco Bill at the Ministry's Park Street head office in Port of Spain yesterday.

'People can smoke in their private residences if they wish to, except when the house is used for the purposes of manufacturing, distribution, or trade,' he said.

It will, however, still be an offence for any person to smoke or hold a lighted tobacco product in any enclosed public place such as public transportation terminals, workplaces, bars, restaurants, shopping malls, clubs, cinemas, and sports facilities or any enclosed workplace.

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• MULLER: Right to light up  

Nazma muller talks to managing director of West Indian Tobacco Company Jean-Pierre du Coudray, a graduate of the University of Western Ontario, Canada, who feels that legislation for tobacco use should also protect smokers, and producers.

Q: Do you smoke?

A: Yes, but it's not because I work here. I've been smoking since I was 22. It's my choice. I was smoking for nine years, before I started working here. It's certainly not a prerequisite for working at Witco. In fact, less than 20 per cent of our employees smoke. In 2006, we discontinued a policy where every employee who smoked used to get, depending on their grade, anything between four to eight cartons of cigarettes a month. This is in line with our responsible approach-if you're an adult and you want to smoke, you have to go out there and buy your cigarettes like everybody else. . . .

Compared to the US and the UK, cigarettes are very cheap in T&T. How does Witco do it?

I wouldn't say they're cheap. They're average. In Guyana and Suriname, they're cheaper than here. What happened is we closed our factories in Jamaica, Guyana and Suriname, and that capacity was transferred to Witco. We brought in high-tech machines from Germany, so now we're much more efficient in terms of economies of scale.

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• Public opinion wanted on tobacco bill 

Members of the public, both smokers and non-smokers alike, are being called upon by the Senate's Select Committee to offer submissions on the Tobacco Control Bill 2008, a newspaper advertisement stated yesterday.

The controversial bill seeks to impose a penalty of $10,000 for anyone found smoking or even holding a lighted cigarette in a public place, including pool halls, bars and clubs.

On November 18, when Health Minister Jerry Narace piloted the bill in the Upper House, he said the legislation was long overdue and quoted a number of studies and statistics which highlighted the dangers of smoking.

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• $10,000 penalty for smoking in public 

A pack of du Maurier - $14. A loose du Maurier - $1.50.

Getting caught smoking one in a public place could cost you $10,000. That is if the Government has its way in the Senate tomorrow, when Health Minister Jerry Narace is expected to present the Tobacco Control Bill 2008.

The bill is aimed at protecting persons from involuntary exposure to tobacco smoke in all public places.

Apart from office buildings, educational and health institutions, the bill also includes public transportation terminals, bars, clubs and pool halls as banned areas.

And anyone who smokes in these places once the bill becomes law is liable, on summary conviction, to a fine of $10,000. The bill requires a three-fifths majority to be passed in the Senate.

In response to the bill, managing director of the West Indian Tobacco Company, Jean-Pierre du Coudray, said his company respected the Government's role in bringing legislation to reduce the negative impact of tobacco on public health.

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• New bill proposes more protection for non-smokers 

A bill that intends to "assert the rights of non-smokers over that of smokers", ban the sale of tobacco products to minors and prohibit the employment of minors to sell or handle such products is now before the Senate.

The new bill, which is called The Tobacco Control Bill, 2008, requires a special majority vote of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, since it is inconsistent with sections four and five of the Constitution.

Both sections define and govern the rights and freedoms of all citizens of Trinidad and Tobago. . . .

The bill was introduced to the Senate on April 22, where it is to be debated first before being introduced to the Lower House.

It is to be piloted by Health Minister Jerry Narace and is meant to implement the requirements contained in the World Health Organisation (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which this country signed on August 27, 2003 and ratified on August 19, 2004. . . .

Clause eight says all persons "shall have the right to be free from involuntary exposure to tobacco smoke in all public places, including workplaces, places of collective use and on public conveyances".

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• $157m WITCO profit as tobacco laws loom 

Despite rising prices and several public health warnings, smokers still spent thousands of dollars on cigarettes within the last 12 months.

The West Indian Tobacco Company has reported a record profit of $157 million for the company's last financial year, which ended on December 31 2007.

An advertisement published in yesterday's newspapers displayed the company's profit earnings for the last year. . . .

And while most smokers the Express questioned said they still smoke the same amount they did when they just started, some admitted that in spite of the much talked about health risks, their daily cigarette quota had grown with time. . . .

However, yesterday, Health Minister Jerry Narace said the Government had taken up the fight against cigarette addiction and will be doing its share of work to help decrease the number of smokers and the amount of cigarettes used in Trinidad and Tobago.

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• New tobacco-related legislation coming soon 

LOCAL cigarette manufacturer West Indian Tobacco Company (Witco) has expressed support of greater regulations for the industry and is ready to meet with the Minister of Health to discuss new tobacco-related legislation. This in light of Health Minister Jerry Narace's announcement in Parliament on Monday that the government plans ban smoking in public places and ban the sale of, advertisement and promotion of tobacco to children.

Witco managing director Jean-Pierre du Coudray told the Express yesterday that the company has for many years been regulating itself according to international standards when it comes to the sale, advertisement or promotion of tobacco products to people under the age of 18 years.

He added that while it is still within the law to advertise cigarettes via television, radio, newspapers, billboards, Witco has accepted its responsibility to the public and has ceased this sort marketing.

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• Surgeon general inks sailors' cigarette packs for vow to quit 

PORT-OF-SPAIN, TRINIDAD - The encounter this week was opportune.

The man whose warning label graces every cigarette pack in the United States paid a visit to a U.S. Navy hospital with 700 military personnel and civilians on board, among them more than a few addicted smokers.

As Rear Adm. Kenneth Moritsugu, the acting surgeon general, toured the USNS Comfort in this southern Caribbean capitol, he found himself autographing sailors' cigarette packs as keepsakes -- with a hitch.

In exchange, the nation's top doctor made them pledge to kick the habit.

On the spot.

"This may well be the motivation they need," Moritsugu said in a shipboard interview . . .

The impromptu initiative was unwittingly started Thursday by an at-times wisecracking sailor aboard the boat, Petty Officer 3rd Class Tyler Jones, who works as a Navy journalist and who has smoked since college.

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THE LAST PACK. 07/20/07.
Rear Adm. Kenneth Moritsugu, US acting surgeon general, autographed cigarette packs for sailors on a hospital ship in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, but at a price--a pledge to quit. Cigarettes are still sold on the ship.

• Witco ready for smoking ban 

THE West Indian Tobacco Company (WITCO) yesterday said its business would not be adversely affected by new legislation coming to Parliament in April which could lead to a ban on smoking in public places. While stating that WITCO has no idea about the details of this legislation, managing director Jean-Pierre Du Coudray said WITCO will continue to work with Government to ensure that the rights of smokers and non-smokers are equally respected.

On Wednesday, Health Minister John Rahael again hinted that Government will bring new tobacco laws to Parliament next month.

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• Lighting up at any price 

Twenty-six-year-old, Anne-Marie Raghunath* is addicted to cigarettes-so much so that the recent price increase in cigarettes has not affected her habit. "As the price increases, my addiction doesn't decrease, it remains the same. So I will be consuming the same amount," she told the Sunday Express during an interview.

Her co-worker, Jason Gonzales*, made a similar confession. When asked if the price increase had affected his smoking, Gonzales said, "No... I am woefully addicted to the product."

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• TT youth top smokers in region 

More underage people are smoking in TT than in other Caribbean islands, and attempts to alleviate the problem in this country have been described as "lax" said Health Minister John Rahael as he addressed the Healthy Communities, Healthy Space Initiative to promote the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), at Hilton Trinidad yesterday .

Rahael made the remarks with reference to the findings of the 2002 Global Youth Survey which included TT.

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• Govt moving for tobacco-free T&T 

The Government of Trinidad and Tobago has convened a tobacco technical task force to promote a tobacco-free country.

This, according to Health Minister John Rahael, who spoke at the signing ceremony at which Trinidad and Tobago became the first Caribbean country to ratify the World Health Organisation's (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).

Rahael said this task force was currently working with other Ministries and NGO's to eliminate tobacco in Trinidad and Tobago and, with the backing of the FCTC, this fight against tobacco would be successful.

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• Athletes support tobacco company 

GEORGE LAQUIS, chairman of the Cancer Society of Trinidad and Tobago, may have lost the second round in his attack on the Witco Sports Foundation's involvement in sport.

It was the view of several of the country's top sports personalities who spoke with the Sunday Express that smoking was a "personal choice", and that sportsmen and women were in no way influenced to smoke by the Foundation or cigarette advertisements.

The consensus is being viewed as a setback to the anti-tobacco campaign launched by Laquis, and his nationwide call to sportsmen to keep away from functions put on by the Witco-funded body, including the Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year awards.

But the first man with whom the Sunday Express spoke - the great Trinidad cyclist Roger Gibbon - was the first winner of the Sportsman of the Year award back in 1962, and he jumped to the defence of Witco.

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