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Jump to full article: Trinidad Express (tt), 2009-11-11
Author: Ria Taitt Political Editor
Intro: No more selling of loose cigarettes. If you sell or buy single cigarettes you will have to pay a fine of $12,000 and be imprisoned for six months.
This is one of the provisions of the Tobacco Control Bill which both Opposition and Independent Senators expressed serious difficulty with yesterday.
Speaking in the debate in the Senate, Opposition Senator Wade Mark slammed this prohibition. 'This is draconian legislation. It is legislation to imprison and kidnap the ordinary member of the population. How could it be a criminal offence for a small owner of a parlour to retail one cigarette to an ordinary member of the public?' he asked. 'So you can sell me a pack (of cigarettes) so I can smoke myself to death, but not one or two cigarettes,' he added.
Mark said if someone was trying to kick the smoking habit by buying cigarettes one at a time, the bill would be discouraging this-and doing the opposite of what it was intended to do, which is to curb the use of tobacco.
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