'Incorporate law on smokeless tobacco'
Legal and health experts demanded amendment to the existing tobacco law incorporating tougher provisions and issues of smokeless tobacco.
“The amendment appears crucial as the tobacco companies are promoting their products taking the advantage of loopholes in the law,” Barrister Cynthia Farid of Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids told a workshop organised by Bangladesh Bar Council in a city hotel on Monday night.
She said laws regarding smokeless tobacco should be incorporated into the Tobacco Control Law to contain widespread use of tobacco products.
Presidium Member of Bangladesh Awami League Advocate Yusuf Hossain Humayun, Kelly Larson of the Bloomberg Philanthropies, USA addressed the workshop with Advocate Z I Khan Panna of Bangladesh Bar Council in the chair.
Judges, lawyers and representatives of different non-government organisations were present at the workshop.
Humayun said anti-tobacco campaign should be expanded across the country to create mass awareness against the use of tobacco and tobacco products.
He urged the concerned organisations to take awareness programme to protect the people from harmful affects of tobacco.
Dr Sohel Reza Chowdhury of National Heart Foundation and Vandana Shah of Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids presented separate keynote papers at the workshop.
“Forty three percent of the country's adult population use tobacco in different forms and the trend is on the rise among the women. . . .the anti-tobacco social campaign needs to be intensified alongside the toughening of law,” Dr Sohel said.
According to recently conducted three independent surveys, the number of tobacco users is growing with new consumers being children and young girls.
The surveys done in separate locations and on different classes of people found that the number of tobacco consumers increased by 7.3 percent in last one decade and one in every four persons smokes and most start smoking at 15-16 years of age.
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