Tobacco industry has many players, let us balance regulation
May 30, 2011
A father of a friend is dying of lung cancer. He remembers the bad old days when tobacco manufacturers used very persuasive advertising to get people, some of them youths, to smoke.
John Nagenda
A father of a friend is dying of lung cancer. He remembers the bad old days when tobacco manufacturers used very persuasive advertising to get people, some of them youths, to smoke.
An elegant car, well-dressed man, a pretty lady, lights of the city, a cigarette in the mouth! He wishes fervently he had not fallen for that glamour.
Things have now changed. Now cigarette companies, as a rule, never promote or encourage young (or indeed older) people to consume tobacco products.
Tobacco advertising is widely banned, and manufacturers have fallen in line. Indeed on cigarette packets dire warnings are printed, pointing out that smoking can kill. Thus those who choose to smoke are well aware where their choice can lead.
But there are, as is always the case, various stakeholders involved. Here, governments and their treasuries, tobacco farmers and their families, and the tobacco companies. All need a fair hearing regarding issues concerning the industry, particularly regarding regulation. Farmers, for example, are acquainted with safety measures by the companies they partner, and who provide the required protective gear.
Also, for example, using child labour is heavily discouraged, as is the use of natural forests for fuel. Over the past decade or so, farmers have enough wood fuel by planting their own trees, aided mainly by tobacco manufactures.
As the world celebrates No Tobacco Day on May 31, the farmers and their dependants face a big threat to their livelihoods as activists call for ever stronger restrictions on the industry. Some of the concerns are valid, but they must be balanced with the legitimate need for farmers to look after themselves and their families.
I am a non-smoker. But having worked for a quarter century as a Board Director of British American Tobacco, Uganda, I am fully witness to the improvement in their daily bread of those 30,000 farmers and their families, with which BAT works as partner.
I have visited all the main growing areas and seen with my own eyes. Let us apply fair balance.
The writer is a former Board of Director British American Tobacco
A father of a friend is dying of lung cancer. He remembers the bad old days when tobacco manufacturers used very persuasive advertising to get people, some of them youths, to smoke.
An elegant car, well-dressed man, a pretty lady, lights of the city, a cigarette in the mouth! He wishes fervently he had not fallen for that glamour.
Things have now changed. Now cigarette companies, as a rule, never promote or encourage young (or indeed older) people to consume tobacco products.
Tobacco advertising is widely banned, and manufacturers have fallen in line. Indeed on cigarette packets dire warnings are printed, pointing out that smoking can kill. Thus those who choose to smoke are well aware where their choice can lead.
But there are, as is always the case, various stakeholders involved. Here, governments and their treasuries, tobacco farmers and their families, and the tobacco companies. All need a fair hearing regarding issues concerning the industry, particularly regarding regulation. Farmers, for example, are acquainted with safety measures by the companies they partner, and who provide the required protective gear.
Also, for example, using child labour is heavily discouraged, as is the use of natural forests for fuel. Over the past decade or so, farmers have enough wood fuel by planting their own trees, aided mainly by tobacco manufactures.
As the world celebrates No Tobacco Day on May 31, the farmers and their dependants face a big threat to their livelihoods as activists call for ever stronger restrictions on the industry. Some of the concerns are valid, but they must be balanced with the legitimate need for farmers to look after themselves and their families.
I am a non-smoker. But having worked for a quarter century as a Board Director of British American Tobacco, Uganda, I am fully witness to the improvement in their daily bread of those 30,000 farmers and their families, with which BAT works as partner.
I have visited all the main growing areas and seen with my own eyes. Let us apply fair balance.
The writer is a former Board of Director British American Tobacco