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28.11.2011 Health

WHY A STRONG TOBACCO CONTROL MEASURES OF THE PUBLIC HEALTH BILL, 2011: Tobacco Kills, hasten the passage to protect lives

28.11.2011 LISTEN
By Vision for Alternative Development (VALD)

Ghana has failed to meet its obligations on article 8, 13 and 5.2 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). February 27, 2010 was the deadline for Ghana to have implemented a comprehensive ban on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship (Article 13) and ban smoking in public places (Article 8). Ghana is expected to have in place comprehensive tobacco control legislation five years after ratifying the FCTC (Article 5.2).

“I remember waking up once at midnight and shaking uncontrollably, picking all the remnants that was in the ashtray and trying to smoke them,” she said. “That's when I realized I was a slave to tobacco. I couldn't believe what my sixteen years of smoking had reduced me to….” Lucy Achieng a 46-year-old mother of three testified after successfully quitting smoking. According to her, smoking is enslaving.

Five million smokers will die this year if current smoking patterns continue, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Tobacco-related deaths are the fastest growing cause of death in low and middle-income countries, on par with the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Tobacco control aims to reduce the harm caused by tobacco use through preventing initiation, increasing quitting, reducing consumption by smokers who continue to smoke and protecting nonsmokers from exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke.

It was a joyful day for Civil Society, stakeholders and Ghana as a whole when on July 22nd 2011, the much anticipated Public Health Bill 2011 which included the Tobacco Control Measures was presented to Parliament by the Hon. Joseph Yieleh Chireh the Minister of Health. Subsequently the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health called for a public hearing on where interested parties were given the opportunity to defend written memoranda presented to parliament.

According to the grapevine tobacco control Civil Society representatives from across the country were dully represented in eagerness to advocate for a strong and effective measures to protect the present and future generations from the devastating health, social, environmental and economic consequences of tobacco consumption and exposure to tobacco smoke.

Ghanaians continue to suffer from tobacco related diseases such as lung, oral and throat cancers, heart diseases, heart attack, infertility, miscarriage, drug addiction and poverty in the name of tobacco trade.

Mr. Issah Ali; Executive Director of VALD stated that “the Tobacco Control Measures of the Public Health Bill when passed will mandate the implementation of pictorial health warnings on tobacco packs to enable smokers and non-smokers with low level of formal education understand the hazardous effect of tobacco use and exposure to tobacco smoke. Countries such as Mauritius, Egypt, Djibouti, etc all in Africa have implemented a pictorial and text health warnings covering on their tobacco pack.

The law will ban all kinds of tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship including cross border and on the internet. The legislation will guarantee a comprehensive ban on pubic smoking. Minors under the age of eighteen years will be prohibited from buying and selling tobacco products.”

We should be wary because unlike other national health threats such as cholera, malaria, maternal mortality, etc this menace has multinational Public Relations firms well established promoters and lobbyists who may not leave anything to chance in interfering with public health policies.

Some countries have fallen prey to the tobacco industry interference in their public health policy therefore making their tobacco control legislations weak and ineffective and this should be a wakeup call to Ghanaian policy makers.

The Coalition on the Tobacco Control Bill (Public Health Bill) “is seriously concern with the participation of the tobacco industry and their think tanks in the discussion of the Tobacco Control Measures of the Public Health Bill, Parliament must therefore protect the Public Health Bill from commercial and other vested interest of the tobacco industry. The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control does not recognize the tobacco industry in the discussion of public health policies. Their participation in the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health's Public Hearing on the Public Health Bill is a violation of the FCTC.

The legislature should be on the look out for any attempt of the industry to interfere with public health policy making, because not only will it affect the well being of Ghana but also a breach in article 5.3 of the FCTC which Ghana is party.

Although Ghana is making headway in the process of enacting legislation against tobacco, its urgency is unfortunately relegated.

Till it happens to a close relation or a friend, one might never realize how close and deadly the tobacco canker is to all of us. However much as one might wish never to believe tobacco is dangerous especially to the secondhand smoker, the evidence is glaring and therefore must be curbed earnestly before it degenerates.

According to UNICEF, approximately one out of every three people in Ghana is illiterate. Even countries with high literacy rates and fewer languages have found that text-only message are not nearly as effective as those with accompany pictures. This is even truer in countries with high illiteracy rates or multiple languages like Ghana.

Vision for Alternative Development and the Coalition on the Tobacco Control Bill humbly call on Parliament to enact a strong and formidable law (Tobacco Control Measures of the Public Health Bill, 2011) that will withstand the test of time.

Ghana needs to ensure that the public is protected, “IF IT MUST BE DONE, THEN IT MUST BE DONE WELL”.

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