Ban on tobacco advertising expected soon



A proposal to ban all tobacco advertising is expected to be approved by the Prime Minister by the end of this year, a health official said yesterday.

The head of technical staff in the Health Promotion Division of the Hygiene and Prevention Department, Dr Khatthanathone Phandouangsy, said the proposal had been drafted by officials of the Ministry of Public Health and the Ministry of Information and Culture.

The two ministries have now passed the draft to the Justice Ministry to work out the legal details before sending it to the Prime Minister's Office.

“After the draft article is approved, all tobacco advertising on signs, in newspapers and magazines and on radio and TV will be banned throughout the country, and tobacco companies will not be allowed to sponsor any activities,” Dr Khatthanathone said yesterday in a telephone interview.

She added that the new legislation will ban sponsorship by tobacco companies of all sports activities as well as advertising signs posted at sport fields.

When it is approved, the two ministries will immediately implement the bans and make the details known to the public nationwide, she said.

She said the draft had been sent to the Justice Ministry a month ago.

“The banning of advertising will make it easier for officials to work on further tobacco controls. We have just set up a group to look at this, with nine ministries represented.”

She added that new laws to control tobacco are expected to be approved in the next three years.

These steps to control tobacco in Laos follow the signing in 2005 of a Framework Convention on Tobacco Control with the World Health Organisation. The convention was ratified in 2006.

On May 31, the town of Luang Prabang was the first World Heritage city in the world to announce a ban of smoking in public places such as workplaces, temples, on public transport, and in other public areas.

Deputy Head of the Education Office in Luang Prabang province, Mr Chanpheng Luangvanna, said during the marking of World No Tobacco Day on May 31 that he had “stopped smoking cigarettes for 10 years because of my health and pressure from my family and society”.

“When I smoked in public or in the office my colleagues or non-smokers would move away from me because of the smoke. So I decided to give up. Smokers mostly think that it is difficult to stop smoking, but for me it wasn't, because if you really want to, you can stop.”

According to WHO, evidence on the damaging health effects of exposure to cigarettes and second-hand smoke has been accumulating for more than 40 years.

There is clear scientific consensus based on hundreds of studies showing that second-hand smoke causes serious and fatal diseases such as asthma, lung cancer and heart disease, which kill 650 million people each year.

At present, around 1 billion people in the world are cigarette smokers and most live in the Asia-Pacific region. Each year, three to four million people die from the effects of smoking. WHO expects that between 2020 and 2030, 10 million people will die each year from smoke-related illnesses.

By Panyasith Thammavongsa
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