[Intl-tobacco] Uganda: Govt bans public smoking

[Robert Weissman]

>>
>> http://monitor.co.ug/news/news03122.php
>> Government bans public smoking
>> By Daniel K. Kalinaki
>> March 12, 2004
>>
>>
>> KAMPALA - Government has banned smoking in public. Water, Lands and
>> Environment minister, Col. Kahinda Otafiire told The Monitor last night that
>> he had ordered the ban with effect from midnight yesterday.
>>
>> "Yes, I have banned smoking in all public places," Col. Otafiire told The
>> Monitor by telephone. He said that the police had received instructions on
>> how to handle offenders.
>>
>> "They know what to do," Otafiire said. Without giving details, the minister
>> revealed that people caught smoking in public will face fines and, or jail
>> terms.
>>
>> The minister defined public places as "anywhere where people converge and
>> where there are non-smokers who do not want to inhale the smoke."
>>
>> Asked to define such places, he named the streets, pubs, schools - even
>> homes, he said, where there are children, among others.
>>
>> Otafiire said: "This thing has been around for sometime but we had to enforce
>> it." He said the Cabinet and Parliament were behind the move.
>>
>> Otafiire's ministry supervises the National Environment Management Authority,
>> which has been holding public consultations over the issue.
>>
>> Health officials warn that tobacco smoking - even of second hand smoke by
>> non-smokers - causes diseases.
>>
>> Henry Rugamba, the Corporate and Regulatory Affairs officer at British
>> American Tobacco (U) Ltd, the biggest tobacco firm in Uganda, said he had not
>> yet seen any official communication on the ban.