Email
Password
(Forgot Password?)
The Director of Public Health of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Joseph Amankwa, has called for the early passage of legislation on tobacco to help combat the menace of the drug. He said the effects of tobacco had gone beyond a health issue to become a major developmental problem that needed to be addressed Dr. Amankwa made the call at a workshop on the implementation of the Framework Convention on tobacco Control, which was organized by the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) in Accra.
Jump to full article »
Chief Executive Officer of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Barbados, Adrian Randall, said advocates and the relevant authorities need to continue to push this mode of thinking, because unless we apply the various articles of the World Health Organisation's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, that number will increase. . . . We have no ban on smoking in public places, we have no ban on advertising cigarettes although there is a gentlemen's agreement in relation to advertising in the media and so it doesn't happen, but there is not any law to prevent it happening, he lamented.
Randall suggested that as other countries throughout the Caribbean start to bring such laws into being, Barbados needs to follow suit or we will run the risk of attracting more attention from the tobacco producers.
A group of campaigners from the world anti-smoking coalition has arrived in the country to partner the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and the media to push the tobacco free agenda forward.
The objective of the group is to advocate the passage of the National Tobacco Control Bill in Ghana to give meaning to the ratification of the tobacco control treaty introduced by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2003.
A written interpellation by lawmaker Leong Iok Wa yesterday said the government did not introduce any measures to respond to the tobacco control treaty which has been in place in Macau since 2006.
The government has recently revised the consumption tax regulations in order to exempt alcohol and fuel levies for local businesses.
However, the lawmaker said the government did not propose a levy increase for tobacco and tobacco products at the same time, but told the Legislative Assembly last week that such revision would be submitted for deliberation along with a string of anti smoking measures in the last quarter of the year.
This legislative orientation, Ms Leong added, was "difficult to understand" as The World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) has already been applied to Macau for two years.
The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Elias Sory, has stressed the need to galvanize efforts to help curb a tobacco epidemic before the situation gets out of hand. He said preventing the problem and saving the younger ones from the epidemic is the best thing any country should aim at.
Dr. Sory was speaking in Accra at a consultative meeting on the implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). He said it took Canada many years to get over the problem because the authorities ignored it initially. The meeting was to identify and document roadblocks to the FCTC's implementation and international funding of tobacco control in Ghana and also establish mechanisms of continuous cooperation between Ghana and Canada to strengthen tobacco control in Ghana .
About 5.4 million people die every year across the globe due to tobacco consumption and the number will go over 8 million by 2030 if immediate steps are not taken, the World Health Organisation (WHO) report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic 2008 said yesterday.
At the launching ceremony of the report at a city hotel, it was also revealed that more than 80 percent of the tobacco victims would die in the developing countries alone by 2030 if tobacco control programme is not augmented by this time. . . .
The report outlined the MPOWER package, a set of six key tobacco control measures . . .
This year National Tobacco Control Cell (NTCC) under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has won the Global Award on the World No Tobacco Day.
WHO representative to Bangladesh Dr Duangvadee Sungkhobol handed over the crest to Uzzal Bikash Dutt, joint secretary of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, on the occasion.
The Government remains committed to the enactment of comprehensive legislation to combat the use and consequences of tobacco products.
This is according to Chief Medical Officer of Health in the Ministry of Health and the Environment, Dr. Sheila Campbell-Forrester, who was speaking at the opening ceremony for the Caribbean Regional Workshop on the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) being held at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston from August 12 to 15.
Speaking on behalf of the Minister of Health and the Environment, Rudyard Spencer, Dr. Campbell-Forrester informed that, "we will bring to Parliament a Tobacco Control Legislation that will reflect the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control."
It is because of the heavy burden the product imposes on public health in Nigeria that some governments are seeking legal redress for compensations from some multi-national tobacco firms. But, would there be any let off until justice is done? . . .
The leading light in the legal gymnastics to compel tobacco companies to face the wrath of the law for the destructions there have caused over the years, is Mr. Tunde Irukera, an erudite attorney, who is very devoted to the case. Speaking to THISDAY in an interview recently, Irukera agreed that the judicial process might be tortuous and painstaking, but his team was prepared to go the whole hog because the issues involved are those of life and death that should not be compromised. . . .
Otherwise, the counsel stated that his team was prepared to prosecute the case to its logical conclusion expressing the optimism that the day of reckoning would surely come. He said the action of the FCT in banning public smoking was significant. He hopes that other states of the federation would explore avenues to ensure that they tow the exemplary line set by the FCT administration.
According to WHO, cessation by the 1.1 billion current smokers would lower tobacco deaths over the next few decades.
The House of Representatives' legislation committee has been accused of curbing efforts to adopt a UN anti-tobacco convention aimed at reducing global consumption of tobacco for its negative impacts on health.
The Indonesian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (IFPPD) said its attempts to include a draft law on tobacco control in the national legislation program had three times been rejected by the committee.
The legislation committee chairman said the bill was "not urgent" for discussion, IFPPD executive director Sri Utari Setyawati said at a press conference here Friday. . . .
Indonesia is among 36 countries worldwide, and the only country in Southeast Asia, which was yet to ratify the UN convention. Other non-party countries include the United States, Argentina, Italy, Switzerland, Somalia, Afghanistan and Mozambique.
Recently, the Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) and other non-governmental organizations filed a class action lawsuit against the government and the House for their reluctance to ratify the treaty, accusing them of failing to protect Indonesians from the dangers of smoking.
读者张先生近日给本版电子邮箱发来邮件询问，“听说低焦油、低烟碱、低一氧化碳烟相对安全，能放心抽，是这样吗？”天津医大总医院院长、我国著名肺癌专家周清华教授表示，“三低”烟不仅不会降低患肺癌几率，反而可能增加危险，一样害你没商量！
The Tobacco Board will submit a road map on shifting the commodity farmers to other crops after a meeting on August 8 - five years after committing to the World Health Organisation to reduce tobacco's output by a half.
The Board, under the guidance of the Commerce Ministry, is to frame an action plan for reducing tobacco farming by 50 per cent in 10-15 years after signing the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) of the apex global health body in 2003.
"We will meet growers, representatives of agriculture departments of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, agriculture universities and the Central Tobacco Research Institute on August 8 in Guntur to prepare a road map on alternative crops. We will submit our r eport after that," Tobacco Board Chairman, Mr J Suresh Babu told PTI.
Hardly a month after the Kenya parliament passed a law seeking to seriously curtail use of tobacco in the country, tobacco firms have gone to court and effectively frustrated enactment of the new rules. These firms have argued that the law had 'criminalised smoking', making it hard for them to operate.
The firms wanted the enactment of the laws put on hold, saying that the provisions of the rules were unrealistic and denied them their constitutional right to make a living.
As as result the high court in Nairobi has suspended the law after an application by 2 firms mastermind Tobacco and multinational British American Tobacco (BAT) Kenya Limited until the matter is heard and determined, in a suit in which the attorney general and the public health ministry are named as defendants.
More and more girls and women in Pakistan are turning to tobacco use, this being a clear sign of the closing gender gap as smoking among girls is constantly increasing as a result of changing social norms and the tobacco industry’s targeting of young women.
There are an estimated 25 million smokers in Pakistan, with the male to female ratio being 4:1. This means that 36% of the adult males and 9% of the adult females in Pakistan are tobacco users. However, the Global Youth Tobacco Survey conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) has found that the boy to girl tobacco use ratio has shrunk to 2:1. This evidence of the closing gender gap in terms of tobacco use is true for both rural as well as urban women.
Lately, the WHO has drawn attention to the need for a gendered response to tobacco use and is calling for specific programmes and policies to curb smoking, in all its forms, among young girls and women.
Last week, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), comprising 54 member states, adopted a resolution recommending that the 192-member General Assembly, the highest policy-making body, "consider" taking steps towards a smoke-free United Nations.
Douglas Bettcher, director of the Tobacco Free Initiative at the World Health Organization (WHO), said an Ad Hoc Inter-agency Task Force on tobacco control, consisting of several U.N. agencies, has recommended that the United Nations as a whole take a strong stance on the issue.
Since the General Assembly had not taken any action on a previous ECOSOC resolution, he said the Council's 54 members should re-state their recommendations at the next session of the Assembly, beginning September, for "a complete ban on smoking and on sales of tobacco in its premises."
Some of the countries speaking in support of the resolution included Uruguay ("the first Latin American country to become totally tobacco-free"), Argentina, Switzerland, Norway, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. . . .
The study also faults the U.N.'s Global Compact, described as the world's largest voluntary corporate citizenship initiative, for harboring tobacco companies under its umbrella.
"WHO believes that the tobacco industry and corporate social responsibility are an inherent contradiction," it says.
"It is unfortunate that some tobacco companies have been able to join the Global Compact given that it is an important corporate citizenship initiative," the study points out. . . .
However, so long as tobacco is a legal product, the GCO does not feel that it can introduce a blanket exclusion for tobacco companies that wish to join the initiative despite having been discouraged from doing so.
Nevertheless, the first requirement of all Global Compact participants is that they will comply with all applicable national and international law.
IT IS HEARTENING to note that thousands of medical practitioners, nutritionists and a wide range of other health care providers, including Barbadians, are swelling the ranks of lobbyists in favour of adopting healthy lifestyles.
Last Wednesday, it was reported that two Americans are combining to contribute at least US$500 million (BDS$1 billion) to developing countries in a global fight against tobacco-induced diseases.
This trend must also gladden the hearts of members of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Barbados (HSFB), one of a group of regional non-governmental organisations (NGOs), whose campaigns on disease avoidance and treatment enjoy generous support from leading professionals. The news must also greatly encourage civic agencies in Barbados . . . .
Meanwhile, anti-tobacco campaigner, retired medical practitioner Dr Tony Gale successfully led a local campaign to cut consumption of that substance, even before larger countries in North America, Britain and Europe, were able to claim similar progress.