Written by Harunah Lumu Thursday, 10 June 2010 14:07
The Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) has informed importers, manufacturers to display a new more visible warning on cigarette packets that reads: "Cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, heart diseases and death."
UNBS has already published the warning in the government gazette and it is expected to be on the packets effective September 1, 2010.
The new warning, which is to take up a relatively big space on both sides of the cigarette packet, will also be translated in Swahili with words: "Uvuji wa sigara husabibisha saratani ya mapafu, magonjwa ya moyo na kifo".
UNBS says that the size of the warning shall be at least 30 per cent of the principal display areas (front and back) in print, in capital letters and legible font size, covering at least 90 per cent of the area designated for the health warning.
The words "health warning" and "Onyo aye afya" shall be underlined in order to separate them from health message.
UNBS insists that all cigarette importers and manufacturers are required to present all the graphic and packaging materials to UNBS for approval prior to putting the products on the market.
UNBS says that the measures shall be reviewed from time to time in line with national needs.
UNBS Principle Public Relations Officer Moses Ssebunya told The Sunrise that the agency intends to start implementing this warning within the next four months.
The Frame work Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) of which Uganda is a signatory requires warning labels to cover between 30 and 50 percent of each cigarette packet.
Ssebunya stressed that the overall objective of the directive is to make the revised warning on smoking hazards clearer and more visible. "Most of the warnings apparently carried on Tobacco packets are hidden, we have discovered that the intended message is not driven at home and thus we want in the new arrangement, the warning in both English and Swahili to be conspicuous". Said Ssebunya.
Dealers will re-invest in packaging
Once successfully affected, importers will have to alter the graphics on their packaging materials to accommodate the specifications in the new UNBS directive.
There are a number of legal and illicit tobacco brands that are mostly imported in the country; Super match, Dunhill, Malboro, and SM among others.
British American Tobacco Uganda (BATU) is a leading dealer in tobacco products in Uganda, involved in growing, processing and export of sportsman, Safari, Crescent and Star. It imports Benson & Hedges, Embassy, Rex and Sweetmenthol.
BATU spokesman Robert Bakyalire was out of reach for comment on the new UNBS directive as he was constantly held up in meetings. In the past, BATU have always maintained that environment, Health and Safety (EHS) are high priorities for responsible companies and BATU was no exception.
BATU realises that Tobacco consumption poses real risks to health, so it agrees that tobacco products should be regulated in appropriate ways.
They support, and want to help deliver, balanced tobacco regulation and they want to participate and support governments with advice on and compliance with effective future laws.
Future concerns
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that tobacco consumption could increase from 1.4 billion smokers to 2.2 billion between 2005 and 2050.
While acknowledging that effective tobacco regulation and education programmes can help to limit this increase, WHO estimates that an average decline of one per cent a year would still see 100 million more smokers by the mid 21st century.
A major challenge facing all stakeholders concerned with tobacco, including governments, consumers, tobacco control groups and the scientific community, is that there are millions of future tobacco consumers and if prohibition is undesirable or impractical, justifiable goals and measures of tobacco regulation should be aggressively emphasised and promoted. blog comments powered by Disqus
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