The Federal Executive Council on Wednesday approved
the draft of the National Tobacco Control Bill 2004 that would be sent to the
National Assembly as an Executive Bill for promulgation into law.
The bill recommends a minimum of six months
imprisonment or N50,000 or both for individuals that smoke outside public
places designated as smoking areas.
The Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku,
and the Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, disclosed this to State
House correspondents at the end of the meeting presided over by President
Goodluck Jonathan.
Chukwu said the penalties for corporate offenders
varied from N1m to N5m and one year to two years imprisonment for the chief
executives of such firms.
The minister added that all forms of
advertisements of tobacco were totally banned under the proposed law.
He added that while the law forbade government
from accepting gifts from tobacco firms, it also banned the firms from
sponsoring any public event.
“When it finally becomes a law, 50 per cent of
the packaging of tobacco is expected to be used to warn the public on the risks
involved in smoking,” he said.
Chukwu said the government would set up a
standing committee that would assist law enforcement agencies in implementing
the law.
He said the present administration decided to
work on the bill because the provisions of a similar one passed into law in
2001 were considered to be weak.
The minister listed some of the diseases linked
to smoking to include cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack and stroke;
cancer, especially that of the lung; as well as chronic respiratory disorder.
He recalled that a Global Youth Tobacco Survey
conducted in 2008 showed that 15 per cent of children between ages 13 and 15
were already smoking and another percentage were passive smokers.
He said the Global Adult Tobacco Survey on its
part showed that 10 per cent of men in Nigeria were smokers while 1.1 per cent
women smoke.
This, he explained, showed that almost six per
cent of adults in Nigeria smoke.
He said, “This is not the first attempt to
control the use of tobacco in this country. In 1990, we had a decree which
tried to place some control on the sale and use of tobacco products and in
2001, it was repealed and re-enacted to become the National Tobacco Control Act
of 2001.
“The whole idea is to make it stiffer, but when
in 2004, Nigeria along with other nations of the world signed the 2004 World
Health Organisation framework convention on tobacco control, there was then the
need to bring our laws in conformity because we, actually as a country,
ratified that convention the next year which was 2005.
“So that attempt by the Executive to
conform eventually culminated in the passage of a revised or amended Act
as it were in 2011 by the sixth session of the National Assembly.
“The bill is to protect Nigerians against the
harmful effects of tobacco. We know that tobacco is dangerous, tobacco is the
cause of many deaths and it causes so many illnesses.”
Follow Me On Twitter & Instagram: @effiongeton
No comments:
Post a Comment