ISLAMABAD, July 19: Health experts are not very optimistic about the impact of anti-smoking law on the society since the persons authorized to ensure its implementation are the biggest violators of the law themselves.
An official, involved in the drafting of the Prohibition of Smoking and Protection of Non-Smokers Health Ordinance 2002, said under the law a person found smoking in public place should be evicted from there. But, persons, who have been made the competent authority, themselves smoke.
For example, the law empowers drivers and conductors of public transport to discourage passengers from smoking. But, majority of the bus and wagon drivers and conductors themselves smoke despite repeated protest by the passengers. Similarly, he said a number of medical superintendents openly smoked inside their respective hospitals.
When asked how could the situation be rectified, the official said the penalty, which the law prescribed, should be implemented there and then whenever a person was found violating the law. Instead of adopting the long course, the ticket system followed by the traffic police should be adopted.
The penalties prescribed by the law suggest a fine of Rs1,000 against a person and in case of subsequent offence, the fine can be extended to Rs100,000. But, it could be done only after the person authorized by the law submitted a formal complaint against violators in a court of law, he said.
“Who will file complaints against the violators realizing the fact that our judicial process is very slow besides witnesses are needed to prove the case,” he said, adding that nobody has so much time to appear before the courts again and again just to prove that an accused was smoking in the public places,” the official said.
He stressed the need of a mass awareness campaign to inform people about the law and its repercussion. Over 99,000 people die annually due to smoking, besides the government spends approximately Rs500 million per annum for treatment of tobacco- related diseases.
Cigarettes, he said, were still being sold to students less than 18 years of age. A number of kiosks and cigarette outlets still existed in front of different educational institutions.
In a recently-held ceremony, the attention of the health minister, Mohammad Nasir Khan, was drawn towards the fact that a number of cabinet members smoked in public.
When the minister was asked whether the law covered these cabinet members, he said he would ask his colleagues to avoid smoking in public.
A WHO study suggested that the government earned an annual revenue of Rs40 billion from the cigarette industry out of which the government received Rs216,000 against each death caused due to smoking-related disease.