After more than three years of dawdling, the government is on the way to finalise the revised tobacco control law keeping designated smoking zones in public places like restaurants that campaigners view as designating a ‘pee’ corner in a swimming pool.
Published : 07 Mar 2013, 01:30 PM
As World Health Organization says passive smoking is as injurious as smoking itself and smoking in one corner can pollute the entire environment, anti-tobacco campaigners’ demand that the provision be revoked altogether before the law is finalised.
They say the provision has been kept bowing down to the pressure of the tobacco companies, which have been accused of delaying the law.
Keeping designated smoking zone in public places is also contrary to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) that Bangladesh ratified and in light of that, the government has revised the 2005 Tobacco Control Act, they say.
“It (smoking corner) is contradictory to the provision of the international convention (FCTC) that we signed,” says Saber Hossain Chowdhury, a key ruling Awami League lawmaker, from a Dhaka constituency.
Chowdhury who is vocal in anti-tobacco movement told bdnews24.com that he had written to the parliamentary standing committee for health to scrap the provision.
The revised 2005 Tobacco Control Act is now with the standing committee where it was sent after the Health Minister placed it in Parliament on Mar 4 a long 190 days after the Cabinet approved the draft.
According to the ‘death clock’ that keeps a running tally of the tobacco-related deaths in a billboard beside a busy road in Bijoy Sarani between Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's residence and the parliament building nearly 30, 000 people died in 190 days in Bangladesh where estimated 57,000 people die of tobacco-related illness every year.
“This provision (designated smoking zone) maligned the revised law which is unless effective,” said Taifur Rahman, Bangladesh Coordinator of the US-based Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids.
He said once passed, tobacco companies had to print pictorial warnings of tobacco health hazards covering 50 percent of the pack on both sides.
Punishment has also been increased for violation from individuals to company level and authorities of a public place can be fined if the law has been violated in that place.
The law has also recognised smokeless products like jarda, and gul as tobacco products and widened the definition of public places as any places where people go. Even local government authorities can designate a place smoke-free.
“But if you keep a smoking corner in a public place, it will pollute the entire area. It’s like peeing in a corner of a swimming pool,” Rahman said and hoped that the parliamentary standing committee would take out the provision.
“It is also contrary to the FCTC in light of which we are making the law,” he said.
Bangladesh ratified the FCTC in 2005 agreeing to control tobacco use by all means, including banning advertisements, making laws and raising taxes.
But due to low tobacco prices, study shows 43 percent people aged above 15 years consume tobacco in some forms.
Rahman said tobacco companies were active from the beginning so that ‘a strong anti-tobacco law is not enacted.’
“Even it was reported that big tobacco companies tried to motivate the finance ministry with their tax myth like the government will lose revenue if strict measures are taken to check tobacco use,” he said.
“But in fact more is needed to be paid to treat tobacco-related illness than the government earns as revenue (from tobacco companies),” he said citing a WHO study.
Dr Sohel Reza Chowdhury, Associate Professor, Epidemiology and Research of the National Institute of Health Foundation and Hospital, said their study found harmful fine particles like PM 2.5 was 2.5 times more in restaurants that allowed smoking than non-smoking restaurants.
“The particle is so fine that it can easily enter into the lungs through gaseous exchange and cause smoker’s lung diseases including cancer to anyone,” he said.