Journos raise voice against tobacco

Journalists demanded strong legislation to curb tobacco use Saturday, just a day prior to the start of the parliament’s winter session when the revised law is expected to be placed for approval.

“We want to see the law passed this session,” Ruhul Amin Rushd, convenor of Anti-Tobacco Media Alliance, a journalists’ platform representing all media outlets in Dhaka, said at a human chain programme.

He made the demand as the government is already late by over three years in amending the 2005 Tobacco Control Act to plug the loopholes. It is now with the Ministry of Law for vetting after cabinet approval.

The human chain was formed in front of the ‘Death Clock’ installed beside a busy road in Bijoy Sarani between Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's residence and the parliament house.

The clock shows the current rate of tobacco-related deaths in Bangladesh at one death in every 9.13 seconds. It has been put up by anti-tobacco campaigner Progga for the first time in a country in the world to remind lawmakers about the urgency of a strict tobacco control law.

During the human chain, it displayed 23,781 deaths in the last 153 days when the revised law received cabinet approval and was sent to the Ministry of Law for vetting.

If the law is passed in the parliament, tobacco companies must print pictorial warnings covering 50 percent space on both sides of tobacco packs.

The penalties for violations would be raised and smoking would be banned at certain public places.

However, it will kept a provision of designated smoking zone in public places like government buildings for smokers that doctors’ say should be scrapped as, according to WHO, passive smoking is as injurious as smoking itself.

Due to ‘cheaper’ prices of tobacco products in Bangladesh, study shows 43 percent people aged above 15 years of age consume tobacco in some form.

WHO estimates 57,000 annual deaths from tobacco in Bangladesh with additional 300,000 people suffering from related ailments.

Bangladesh ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in 2005 agreeing to control tobacco use by all means, including banning advertisements, making laws and raising taxes.

Different anti-tobacco organisations including doctors’ alliance – United Forum Against Tobacco, Anti-Tobacco Women’s Alliance, Dhaka Ahsania Mission and Progga - expressed their solidarity with the journalists in the human chain.