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A LAW banning smoking in public places and regulating tobacco products in Kenya came into effect last week spelling the end of a convoluted legal tussle between the government and tobacco firms.
The Tobacco Control Act, passed in parliament last year but given a ninemonth implementation period, provided a legal framework to control the production, manufacture, sale, advertising and use of tobacco products.
“The main objective is to protect people’s health and in terms of tobacco, you are protecting the smoker and you are also protecting people around the smoker,” said James Nyikal, permanent secretary in the ministry of public health and sanitation. The ban defined “public places” as office blocks, working areas, court buildings, education institutions, residential areas, places of worship, police stations, prisons, markets, malls, cinemas and theatres, children’s homes and playing fields.
Authorities ban smoking in public But it allowed smokers to light up in “special designated areas”. The law banned the sale of cigarettes to people aged under 18 years, selling tobacco in a packet of less than 10 cigarettes, promoting tobacco by sponsoring public activities and branding of buildings other than those owned or leased by manufacturers. The courts blocked previous attempts to enforce the nationwide ban on grounds that the government did not give tobacco firms enough compliance time and would force them to destroy millions of dollars worth of their products.
Last year, local authorities in the capital Nairobi and the regional town of Nakuru banned smoking in public but with mixed results. Under the ban, violators were liable to imprisonment of between six months and three years or a fine of 50 000 to three million shillings ($46 000). Smoking earned the Kenya government about five billion shillings ($76m) a year in taxes, but costs five times as much in disease, disability and death, according to official figures. |
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