Jail for selling cigarettes; Senators slam Tobacco control bill

Independent Senator Prof Ramesh Deosaran told the Senate Tuesday the Tobacco Control Bill, 2009, is an infringement on people’s right to privacy.

One provision of the proposed bill is to impose a fine of $12,000 (or six months jail) on people who sell loose cigarettes. It's aimed at cutting down smoking among school children, but also targets street vendors and owners of small corner shops who make their living by selling single cigarettes to adults.

Deosaran said, "What we are seeking to do is trampling upon or taking away something to which so many people have grown accustomed to in the privacy of their own homes."

And he said the bill does not have the ability to control people’s appetite or addiction to cigarettes.

“As far as ‘forcibility’ is concerned, this bill will not meet the 75 per cent mark,” he said. He noted that while there is legislation against the use of marijuana, people are still smoking pot "here there and everywhere, including in front of schools".

Deosaran cited research that he said shows that 40 per cent of secondary school students admit that they smoke two or three times while at school in the last few months.

He said in addition, half of them also admitted to smoking on a regular basis while at home.

"This also implies that their parents smoke heavily, so you have a generational transmission which is what the legislation is trying to break," he said.

Deosaran suggested that the government conduct an in-depth study on why people continue to smoke despite the public knowledge that smoking endangers health.

Deosaran said while he supports the legislation in principle he believes it does not effectively deal with the real problem since it does not address addiction.

He suggested that the likely result of the legislation is to send smokers to other place such as bathrooms to light up and have a smoke.

His colleague, Independent Senator Subhas Ramkhelawan, had a different take on the issue of protecting people's health. He said Government should also ban obesity and alcohol as these too are dangerous to the health of the people.

He said people know it is dangerous to drink and drive yet they continue to do it and add to the carnage of the country's roads. And he suggested they will continue to smoke no matter how much they are told of its dangers.

Another independent Senator, Corrine Baptiste-McKnight, also expressed concerns over the proposed legislation. She warned that a ban smoking in enclosed public spaces will amount to "criminalising" smoking.

"What we are doing is criminalising cigarettes...We’ve got to recognise that the person who chooses to kill his or herself has rights," the senator said.

Commenting on the stiff penalties for selling single cigarettes, opposition Senator Wade Mark said the measure is draconian.

"It is legislation to imprison and kidnap the ordinary member of the population. How could it be a criminal offence for a small owner of a parlour to retail one cigarette to an ordinary member of the public?" he asked.

"So you can sell me a pack (of cigarettes) so I can smoke myself to death, but not one or two cigarettes,’ he added.

Mark saw a contradiction in the motive behind the bill, noting that if the intention is to encourage people to stop smoking the ban on selling single cigarettes defeats the purpose.

"If someone was trying to kick the smoking habit by buying cigarettes one at a time, the bill would be discouraging this and doing the opposite of what it was intended to do, which is to curb the use of tobacco.

He suggested that the Manning administration was once again penalising the poor since most people working for minimum wages cannot afford to buy a pack of cigarettes."People...cannot believe that there is a bill before Parliament banning poor people from buying one cigarette," Mark said.