MANSEHRA, Feb 16: The government intends to bring in a new law to be called Smokers Health Ordinance to ban the sale of cigarettes to under-age people and advertisements of tobacco products in print and electronic media, sources have told Dawn.

The law, when enforced, will ensure that no kiosk or shop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products is set up near schools or colleges.

No one differs on the hazardous and injurious effects of smoking on human health, but despite warnings like ‘smoking is injurious to health’, ‘smoking causes lungs cancer’, ‘smoking when pregnant harms your baby’ etc, more and more people, particularly teenagers, are taking to smoking.

According to the sources, the manufacturers and distributors of cigarettes, however, have reservations about the proposed ordinance, which is likely to be promulgated soon throughout the country.

Sheraz Mahmood Qureshi, president of an association of distributors, Hazara division, told Dawn that “we have no objection to the steps being taken by the government to curb the menace of smoking but the fact remains that 0.5 million people of the country earn their livelihood through the business of cigarettes and other tobacco-related products.”

He said the government received Rs20 billion per year in forms of different taxes from the cigarette industry and 25 per cent excise duty was also shared by cigarette manufacturing companies.

At present, more than one million people were associated with the cigarette industry and providing them with jobs was a moral duty of the government.

Mr Qureshi urged the government to ensure that before the promulgation of the proposed law, it would hear the cigarette manufacturers and the people related to the sale and distribution of the cigarettes, else the ordinance would yield no positive results as had happened in the past.

A ban was imposed on smoking at public places, including offices, bus-stands, airports, hospitals and railway stations, during the second tenure of Nawaz Sharif as prime minister. The ban, however, could not be properly implemented.