Jump to full article: Barbados Daily Nation, 2007-04-15
Author: DR TONY GALE
Intro: LEGISLATIVE MEASURES in Barbados for the prevention and elimination of the morbidity and mortality caused by the manufacture, supply and use of tobacco mandate the prohibition of tobacco use at the Cricket World Cup (CWC).
The Consumer Protection Act and the Consumer Guarantee Acts were enacted and proclaimed by the Government of Barbados in 2003, and the Minister of Commerce, Consumer Affairs and Business Development has declared that the most important of the benefits of consumer protection legislation are the following:
1. The Right to Safety - to be protected against the marketing of goods and services which are hazardous to health or life.
. . .
This legislation makes it possible for the Government of Barbados to ban or order the withdrawal of all tobacco products on the grounds that they are lethal; and the fact that tobacco products have been declared by the WHO to be the only class of legal products which, when used in the way intended by manufacturers and suppliers, endanger or destroy the freedom and wreck the health of all habitual users, puts them in this category. . . .
The Government and people of Barbados now have the weapons and the ammunition to eradicate the use of a scourge that caused 100,000,000 deaths in the 20th century and if allowed to continue will cause 1000,000,000 more in the 21st century.
It is very likely that they will challenge the legitimacy of one of the richest and most influential multinational corporations in the world all the more so since 90 per cent of their staff are non-smokers, 80 per cent of their homes are smoke free and, since 1982 through voluntary agreements, the prohibition of smoking in workplaces has increased from 29 to 90 per cent.
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