Despite commitments by the previous minister of health for tough rules for cigarette packaging in line with a WHO convention, legislation is still to be effected.
In 2009, former Minister of Health Dr Leslie Ramsammy had committed to packaging that reflected the dangers of smoking in keeping with the World Health Organisation Framework Conven-tion on Tobacco Control.
However, by the time he demitted office last year no such legislation was in place.
The issue of cigarette packaging was back in public focus earlier this month after a landmark ruling in Australia upheld Canberra’s tough anti-tobacco marketing laws.
According to Reuters, Australia’s highest court endorsed tough new anti-tobacco marketing laws, dismissing a legal challenge from global cigarette companies in a major test case between tobacco giants and anti-smoking campaigners.
Tobacco giants British American Tobacco, Britain’s Imperial Tobacco, Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco challenged the laws in Australia’s High Court, claiming the rules were unconstitutional because they effectively extinguished their intellectual property rights.
The judges hearing the case did not find that the laws breached the constitution.
The Australia decision means cigarettes and tobacco products must be sold in plain olive green packets without branding from December 1, 2012. The plain packages will also carry graphic health warnings.
The laws are in line with World Health Organisation recommendations and are being watched closely by Britain, Norway, New Zealand, Canada and India, who are considering similar measures to help fight smoking.
Industry analysts are worried plain packaging laws could spread to emerging markets like Brazil, Russia and Indonesia and threaten sales growth, Reuters reported.
Ironically, in a similar case last week, Reuters said that a U.S. appeals court struck down a law that requires tobacco companies to use graphic health warnings, such as of a man exhaling smoke through a hole in his throat.
Reuters said that a 2-1 decision by the court in Washington, D.C., contradicts another appeals court’s ruling in a similar case earlier this year, setting up the possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court will weigh in on the dispute.
The court’s majority in the latest ruling found the label requirement from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration violated corporate speech rights.
“This case raises novel questions about the scope of the government’s authority to force the manufacturer of a product to go beyond making purely factual and accurate commercial disclosures and undermine its own economic interest — in this case, by making `every single pack of cigarettes in the country mini billboard’ for the government’s anti-smoking message,” wrote Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Percolating
Asked what his ministry is doing about this issue, Health Minister Dr Bheri Ramsaran told Stabroek News that legislation which will address cigarette packaging is currently being drafted as the impact of non-communicable diseases has been recognised.
“The idea I think is not to make the cigarette packages attractive and there will be warnings from the Ministry of Health. So yes, we are fully on board with that and that piece of legislation is in the percolator,” Ramsaran said in a brief interview.
“We have done a lot of work too… we are now recognizing that there is an epidemic of non-communicable diseases… Four things tend to make this epidemic possible and spread, among those bad things is the use of tobacco products and another one is the use of alcohol. So yes, your ministry is in sync with what is going on internationally,” he continued
He noted that the Ministry of Health endorses the anti-tobacco marketing laws and as such, is in the process of drafting its very own legislation that will address this issue.
“Your administration is looking at legislation,” he stated while pointing out that he had made an appeal to the office of the Attorney General (AG), Anil Nandlall, a few weeks ago. “They’ve asked to do some more outreaches, some more consultations because this is a consultative process and we hope that any legislation that we present would have been bought into by the wide cross-section of our people,” he added.
Ramsaran stated that persons who are to be playing an active role in this process are experiencing shortcomings and may be contributing to the holdup on the completion of the legislation.
“I think my technical people are letting us down a little bit there and letting down the AG because he made a specific call that we have more interaction with the public. There is a unit which is helping us draft the legislation. The AG has seen it and he has asked us to go out there and let the public know what it is we are doing,” he noted.
The Health Minister pointed out that he will not yet permit himself to say whether the products will be packaged in a particular box but consideration is being given to it. “Some countries like Australia have decided that they want to do that but it is within the convention, there is an international framework that we have and that framework will allow each country the leeway to achieve the same things,” he explained.
“So yes, we are aware of this …Different countries have been following different positions. How we should label cigarette packages. So Guyana has a legislation percolating in which that issue is addressed,” Ramsaran reiterated.
A December 17, 2009 editorial in the Stabroek News, had noted that Dr Ramsammy, had been disappointed that standards were not yet in place for packaging and that the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce was still consulting on the size of picture messages on cigarette packets.
In an article one day prior to that, the Minister had said that the fight for tobacco control will be more robust in 2010 with an intense focus on labelling and packaging as he had registered his disappointment that required standards were not yet in place here.
Ramsammy at that time had pointed out that he was concerned that the recommendations for a revision of the labelling and packaging standards in Guyana have not yet been implemented. The standard in Guyana was said to be less than what is stipulated by the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
Article 11.1(b)(iv) of the Convention says that “health warnings and messages on tobacco product packaging and labelling should be 50% or more, but no less than 30%, of the principal display areas. Given the evidence that the effectiveness of health warnings and messages increases with their size, Parties should consider using health warnings and messages that cover more than 50% of the principal display areas and aim to cover as much of the principal display areas as possible. The text of health warnings and messages should be in bold print in an easily legible font size and in a specified style and colour(s) that enhance overall visibility and legibility.”
It had been in 2009 that Ramsammy and the Tobacco Council proposed that picture messages about the dangers of tobacco on packages in Guyana should cover 50% of the box as the minimum requirement. While the Bureau of Standards had not objected to the proposal there was also no indication as to whether it was accepted.
“…I am disappointed that we are still discussing this issue in Guyana”, Ramsammy had said.
Minister Ramsammy had promised that the fight for tobacco control would be more robust in 2010 with an intense focus on labelling and packaging. There was no apparent progress on this front. Efforts made to contact Ramsammy for comment on this matter proved futile.
