Tobacco.org

Kevin O'Connor | Could tobacco play a part in Uganda’s population control? 

If current trends continue, it is projected to kill 10 million people a year by 2020, with 70 per cent of those deaths occurring in developing countries like Uganda. Tobacco also takes an enormous toll in health care costs, lost productivity, not to mention the pain and suffering inflicted upon smokers, second-hand/passive smokers and their families.

And, it is more painful to die of cancer in Uganda, as most hospital and clinics do not have the sophisticated pain-relieving drugs that are readily available in rich countries. Having ratified the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, Uganda now needs to speedily implement it.

This would mean that Ugandans will become more aware of the dangers of smoking; for example, through large, powerful warnings on cigarette packets, which will replace the current tiny weak ones. Above all, the welcome but modest increase in tobacco excise duty in the 2008 budget needs to be followed by a more substantial one in the 2009 budget. Raising tax on cigarettes both increases Ugandan tax revenue and reduces Ugandan deaths and sickness. It is indeed a win-win government policy option made in heaven.

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Journalists invited to conference on tobacco consumption in Uganda 

Journalists and journalism students in Uganda interested in public health can attend a symposium on March 3 in Kampala which will analyze the potential political implications of draft legislation that seeks to reduce tobacco consumption in the country.

The conference, which take place at Triangle Hotel, will evaluate legislation drafted in light of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The FCTC, ratified recently in Uganda, requires states to limit the consumption and supply of tobacco.

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Health Condemn Tobacco Use 

LOCAL and international health experts want Uganda and other developing countries to curb tobacco smoking and reduce salt intake to stem cancer, diabetes, respiratory and heart diseases.

The ailments classified as lifestyle diseases are fast becoming epidemics and will account for 70% of deaths in a few years the experts warned. They said that the problem is global but the hardest-hit are are the poorest and the middle-income countries of Africa and Asia. . . .

The experts were meeting in an International Summit on Chronic Disease at the Kampala Serena Hotel.

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• Tobacco Farmers Deplete Trees 

THE cutting of trees for tobacco-curing, and charcoal-burning have contributed to the depletion of trees in West Nile, the Arua district forest officer, Edison Adiribo, has said.

He said tobacco, the region's major cash crop, requires large quantities of wood fuel to cure, and has forced farmers to indiscriminately cut down trees.

Adiribo was speaking at the launch of an agro-forestry project in Arua town on Saturday.

The project is a partnership between the Nile Trans-boundary Environmental Action Project under the Nile Basin Initiative and Arua Rural Community Development.

It promotes afforestation and cultivation of red bird chili as an alternative income source for tobacco farmers in Arua and Maracha/Terego districts.

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Sh11 Billion Lost in Illicit Tabacco Trade - Report  

OVER sh11.2b is lost each year through illegal tobacco trade, a report released by the British American Tobacco (BAT) Kenya, has said.

According to the report, Kenya loses $21m (about sh22m), Burundi $7m (about sh13b), Uganda $6m (11.2b), while Rwanda loses $1m (sh1.8b) annually.

The report on the theme "Illicit trade: A threat to sustainable growth in the East African Community (EAC)," was released during the East Africa International Business Forum held in Kigali, Rwanda, recently.

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• Stronger warning on fags 

Cigarette manufactures in Uganda, will alter the mild health warning on packs, to clearly tell smokers of the danger of contracting incurable diseases through consuming tobacco products.

The Uganda National Bureau of Standards has directed cigarette makers to display in their packaging that smokers face certain death by consuming their product.

The warning that manufacturers are to imprint on packets within the next six months will read, Cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, heart diseases and death” as opposed to the current warning, Cigarette smoking can be harmful to your health. Dr Terry Kahuma, the executive director of UNBS in a letter to the ministers of Health and Trade, said the alert would be carried in English and Kiswahili.

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Mob kills man for smoking 

A man was lynched by an irate mob in a bar in Eastern Ugandan after refusing to stop smoking despite repeated requests from fellow drunken patrons, an official said Friday.

The incident was the first deadly attack targeting a smoker since a 2004 ban on smoking in public places was imposed in the East African nation. . . .

The lynch party, which was drinking a local potent brew known as "enguli" in Nagongera village, pounced on the deceased man on Thursday night after he refused to throw away a cigarette he was puffing on inside the bar.

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• Ugandan killed for smoking in bar 

Ugandan officials have expressed shock after a mob killed a man who refused to stop smoking in a public bar.

Customers at the village bar in eastern Uganda attacked the man after he repeatedly refused to respect a smoking ban, according to witnesses.

It is the first known incident of its kind since Uganda introduced a public smoking ban four years ago.

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• Police, Nema rift on smoking ban 

Confusion as to who should enforce the law that bans smoking in public places is making the regulation inactive, three years after it came into force.

The Police and the National Environment Management Authority (Nema) are accusing each other of failing the implementation. Following a renewed call by the Environmental Action Network (Tean), an NGO, asking Nema to enforce the ban, Daily Monitor on Tuesday sounded out both institutions.

The Nema Public Relations Officer, Naomi Karekaho, said the police were in a better position to explain the inactiveness of the ban. “Our work is to put in place regulations and that is what we did regarding the ban on public smoking. The public relations department of the police should explain,” said Ms Karekaho.

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• Batu loses Shs4 billion case to tobacco growers 

Over 3,000 tobacco farmers from mid western Uganda have won a landmark case in which they demanded over Shs3.8 billion from BAT Uganda Limited (Batu) as compensation for tobacco grown in 2004 which the latter refused to buy.

Commercial Court Judge, Egonda Ntende in his judgment delivered last week, agreed with the arguments of the farmers that Batu was liable to compensate the complainants for the tobacco they grew on contract.

“I am satisfied that the farmers grew the tobacco in accordance with their contract and the law and delivered the same to Batu,” Justice Ntende’s judgement reads in part.

“But the tobacco company, for reasons that have not been explained in this case, declined to complete the process

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• OGUZU: Tobacco firms should be socially responsible 

I wish to draw attention to the damage tobacco growing has caused to the environment in West Nile, the North, Bunyoro and south-western Uganda.

Several acres of woodland have been felled for flue-cured tobacco production in Maracha, Arua, Koboko, Yumbe, Hoima, and Masindi districts. Forests that would otherwise have filtered carbon emissions and protected arable land from erosion are removed, and temperatures in the tobacco-growing districts are rising.

Firms like British American Tobacco, Leaf Tobacco and Commodity, as well as Continental, in their fallacy, give eucalyptus seedlings to farmers supposedly to replace chopped forests without considering the long maturity period and its impact on the water table.

The tobacco firms do not plough back their high profits yet they hype their cosmetic social responsibility programmes. . . .

The negative impact of tobacco growing includes the accumulation of chemical compounds in soils and declining fertility. Tobacco production negatively affects people's health. The effects include nicotine poisoning, pesticide exposure, respiratory effects, musculoskeletal and other injuries.

The Government should assist tobacco growers in West Nile to produce alternative crops that thrive well there without fertilisers or pesticides. The sh48b the Government gets in tax revenues from tobacco exports and products should not shroud the negative effects on tobacco on the population.

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Anti tobacco activist accuse BAT 

The Tobacco of Health Forum has criticised the British American Tobacco Uganda for putting pressure on government not to increase excise duty on tobacco in the 2008/2009 budget, basing on the failure by the government to curb tobacco smuggling.

BAT Company Secretary, Isaac Ampeire said recently that it wouldn’t be good or fair for government to raise taxes on tobacco products, when the same government has failed to stop smuggling of tobacco into or out of the country.

The Tobacco or Health Forum says this is an excuse by BAT to avoid the pending tax increase on tobacco products.

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Govt Challenged On Anti-Smoking Laws  

ANTI-smoking activists have urged the Government to enforce the law that prohibits smoking in public places. This, they said, will stop deaths and other ill-health related to tobacco consumption and exposure to second-hand smoke.

Petitioning the Speaker of parliament over the increasing rate of smoking in the country, the Tobacco or Health Forum (TOH), a local anti-smoking association, last week decried the failure by concerned authorities to implement the 2004 legislation on smoking. . . .

TOH chairperson Grace Ndyanabangi said the National Environmental Maintenance Authority, the Police and other government institutions had failed to enforce the law.

This, she said, had contributed to a "dangerous increase in the rate of smoking especially among the youth".

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Anti-tobacco activists in Uganda demonstrate against cigarette advertising  

As the world is set to mark World No-Tobacco Day on Saturday, anti-tobacco activists here on Friday demonstrated against cigarette advertising and the government's reluctance to enforce laws against public smoking.

In a petition to Parliament Speaker Edward Ssekandi, the activists demanded that warnings on cigarette packets cover 50 percent of the principal display areas.

The warnings should change from "Cigarette Smoking can be Harmful to your Health" to "Smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease and death", the petition said.

The activists joined by school children and medical workers marched to British American Tobacco Uganda, the country's biggest producer of cigarettes, and handed a memorandum to the company officials accusing the company of backtracking its social responsibility role.

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EDITORIAL: We applaud women struggles, progress 

Saturday Monitor of May 31 carried two stories on the same subject women, but on different issues - graduation and smoking. Mukono University: Women Trounce Men for First Class Degrees, goes the first headline. And as if in competition, another headline says: Girls Smoke As Much As Boys – Report. . . .

First all, smoking is a health hazard. It is a practice which everybody must avoid. And at a time when women are beginning to take charge and lead at every level of society, including in passing exams, it is wrong for some women to confused themselves and ruin their future through consuming deadly substances in the name of seeking beauty. What is attraction, after all? Who benefits from one’s attraction? And didn’t I hear that “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.”

Another disadvantage of smoking is that it oftentimes leads to the destruction youth energy. . . .

Building a future is the most important thing in life. It’s what everyone, women inclusive, must strive to accomplish. Anything else including the search for simple gratification by smoking, is temporal and counter- productive.

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