Tobacco.org

KHAN: Health or tobacco: A choice between life and death 

Bangladesh after vacillating for quite a long time between its policy imperative to raise its tax revenue from the tobacco industry and the overriding need to be seen to act in favour of protecting public health against the backdrop of the growing tobacco threat, finally managed to put together a tobacco control regime and pass it into a law on 26 March 2005 designated as 'The Bangladesh Tobacco Products Usages and Control Act, 2005.' It seems the implementation of the Act which is designed to contain the tobacco scorage is proving even tougher than its passage. By largely leaving unacted the law that has been enacted, the government gives the impression of opting for decontrol rather than control of tobacco. Most anti-tobacco campaigners who had high expectations from the law are disillusioned by what they view as a betrayal of the law. In the meantime, the slow peace of progress over enforcing the law has caused the tobacco epidemic to escalate. As a result of the slackness in applying the statue, the tobacco companies have reaped rich rewards by gaining access to new markets for their products in Bangladesh.

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