Why there is such a need for public interest litigation when the government does not care about enforcing the law.
Uganda: Does the Law On Smoking in Public Still Exist? - New Vision (Kampala)
OPINION
April 12, 2007
Hassan Isilow
Kampala
IN 2006 the Parliament of Uganda passed a law prohibiting smoking in public places. Interestingly, the law has never been effected by the law enforcement agencies. It is common to find people smoking in taxis and buses. In doing so, they are not only breaking the law but are also making life uncomfortable for other passengers.
Regular travellers to northern Uganda may agree with me that this practice is common in passenger service vehicles. Drivers, conductors and passengers are not ashamed to light a cigarette or open a beer bottle while on board. Yet the law states that no smoking is allowed in a vehicle with a child under the age of 12 present.
The law also states that no smoking is allowed at the workplace. This includes smoking at a window or doorway. This has been totally abused by both employers and employees at many work places in Uganda. Surprisingly, nobody seems to be complaining.
Those who sit near smokers need to know that passive smoking is more harmful than actual smoking. Cigarette smoking has been identified as the most important source of preventable morbidity and premature mortality.
Smoking-related diseases claim an estimated 438,000 American lives each year, including those affected indirectly such as babies born prematurely due to prenatal maternal smoking and victims of "secondhand" exposure to tobacco's carcinogens. Smoking costs the United States over $167b each year in health-care costs, including $92b in mortality-related productivity losses and $75.5b in excess medical expenditures
Nicotine is an addictive drug which when inhaled in cigarette smoke reaches the brain faster than drugs that enter the body intravenously. Smokers not only become physically addicted to nicotine; they also link smoking with many social activities, making smoking a difficult habit to break.
Once the Government takes this law seriously, billions of shillings that would otherwise be spent on importing drugs will be saved.
Employers should improvise special rooms for their smoking staff and the Government should review this law and provide heavier fines for those caught smoking in public places so that they may serve as an example to the others.
The writer is a Ugandan journalist based in Johannesburg, South Africa
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