Jump to full article: Capital FM Kenya (ke), 2009-10-25
Author: SARAH WAMBUI
Intro: The war between the tobacco industry and various social organisations has gone a notch higher with lawyers allied to the African Tobacco Alliance and the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids calling on the government to tighten its control legislations, to reduce the number of smokers in the country.
Chairperson of the Africa Tobacco Control Alliance (ATCA) Rachel Kittonyo said on Saturday that more than 18.2 percent of boys and girls in Kenya aged between 13 and 15 were currently smoking.
"These are very worrying figures because in 2001 the figure was at 11 percent. This means that in a span of seven years the figure has almost doubled. If we do not do anything about it then in the next seven years, the figures will have shot up even higher," she stated.
Pamela Lambert, an official of Tobacco Free Kids, held that a concerted educational effort on the harmful effects of tobacco between the Kenyan government and citizens would reduce the number of smokers, noting that education had seen the number of smokers in developed nations go down.
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