BY LUCY ANAYA

 IT is a fact that the Government of Kenya is currently grappling with economic crisis and hardly hit by tobacco related ailments and environmental degradation as a result of tobacco smoking and growing. What is mystifying is that the revenue earned from tobacco industry can not measure billions of shillings spent in curing diseases related to tobacco.

It is evident that the public ignorance and lack of knowledge and information about the dangers of tobacco is the root cause of this. The public do not understand that tobacco kills.

This therefore is a challenge to Kenya Tobacco Control Alliance (KETCA), the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation, relevant health institutions and other tobacco advocates to lobby the Kenya National Commission on Human rights (KNCHR) to declare tobacco a human rights issue.

To further reduce tobacco intake in Kenya, there is a need of building a coalition with the health networks which will help disseminate accurate information for instance advocate that the drug is addictive in nature.

And, the organizations should form alliances with other NGOs like medical institutions, economic scientists, expertise in legal issues, politicians among others to build visible lobbying by engaging the public in active protest, making anti-tobacco issue the national mainstream debate.

There are still other avenues of pressing for anti- tobacco issues to be heard/ discussed at National levels. Lobbying for the adoption of pictorial health warnings on cigarettes.  The public desperately need to be told information that is factual. Pictures will help them understand how serious the diseases caused by smoking are and why they should avoid cigarette smoking/second hand smoking.

Pictures are powerful tools of communication. They motivate behavioral change and communicate directly to the smokers. They reinforce the message, every time a smoker tries to get a stick,he looks at the picture and makes a u turn. Never to smoke again.

Victims of tobacco in Kenya narrate their experiences with pain and anguish. They strongly advocate that pictorial warnings should be used on cigarette packs.

Linking warnings with experiences at the local level will add meaning to anti-tobacco campaigns for instance victims of amputated legs, damaged lungs, mouth and throat cancer, skin infections, heart attacks, etc makes the message believable and acceptable. Tobacco ailments have been caused by either smoking/second handing smoking, home production of tobacco or working in tobacco manufacturing companies.

Pictures can be understood even without the text. They communicate health risks to those who can not read, hence revoke emotional response. The message should be communicated more effectively to tobacco users who are likely to remain salient over time. They need to be shown pictures with messages like ‘smoking causes blindness’, clogs arteries, cigarette causes mouth diseases etc.

A part from reminding the public about health effects of smoking, the pictures will address other harmful effects of cigarette e.g. environmental degradation, social and economic effects for instance the money a smoker spends buying cigarettes say in a month. Such information can also be used for education purposes in schools and other institutions in a pictorial form.

The impact of tobacco is clearly felt among adult Kenyans who are victims of tobacco.

According to Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, an International Organization that advocates against tobacco world wide, large picture-based health warnings labels on tobacco packages are an essential component of a national strategy to reduce tobacco in take.  

Tobacco Control Act 2007 is an Act of Parliament to control the production, manufacture, sale, labeling, advertising, promotion and sponsorship of tobacco products, to provide for the Tobacco Control Board, to regulate smoking in specified areas and for connected purposes enacted by the Parliament of Kenya.

It gives information required on packages; section (4) explains that the Minister may, by notice in the Gazette, prescribe that the warning, required under this section, be in the form of pictures or pictograms.
Section (6) of the  same chapter states that A person who contravenes any of the  provisions of this section commits an offence and shall on conviction, be liable to a fine not exceeding five hundred thousand shillings, or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years or both.

In a lay man’s language, the act supports use of pictorial health warnings on cigarette packs.

Assessments of the present tobacco pictorial health warnings and health warnings in other countries have proved to be more effective measures to communicate health risks related to tobacco because pictures are likely to be noticed. In a country like Kenya where readership is poor, pictures will easily capture the attention of the audience.

At least 25 countries have currently finalized requirements for picture-based warnings
 For instance Canada, Brazil, Singapore, Jordan, Venezuela, Chile, Austria,  Iran and in Africa Egypt, Djibout and the best examples of pictorial tobacco health warnings are found in Mauritius, where pictures cover the largest space on the packet.  

World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control states that health warnings should cover at least 50 of the principal and display may be in form of pictures and pictograms.
Whereas Kenya advocates for health warnings to cover 30% 50% of the front and back of the cigarette packs, other countries advocate for 50% 50% for instance Cameroon,
Eritrea, Madagascar among others.
Canada gives insights on how to quit smoking. Australia gives the ‘quit line’ for smokers.

The products of tobacco crop when consumed in various ways have devastating health impacts. Cigarette consumption remains among the leading cause of death in Kenya today. A study which was done in tobacco growing areas in Kenya indicate that up to 60 per cent of medical consultations are attributable to tobacco consumption, production and home procession.

Women and children continue to suffer from Green Tobacco Sickness (GTS). The number of those who are facing tragic consequences as secondhand smokers is increasing by day. Children from homes where members of their families smoke cigarettes are constantly admitted in hospitals due to complications related to tobacco for instance pneumonia, chest pains, heart complications among others.

The industry has laid down another strategy of marketing their product. For instance organizing trips for journalists to cover tobacco farmers, portraying the crop as the biggest economic earner in the country. A tobacco manufacturing company recently released to the media farmers earnings of the year.

It is time patriotic Kenyans should get concerned about issues affecting their health, an ailing nation remember is an ailing economy.

COMMUNICATION OFFICER, KENYA TOBACCO CONTROL ALLIANCE (KETCA)

ENDS…./