HEALTH-SRI LANKA: Showdown Over Ban on Tobacco, Liquor Ads

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Sep 10 1998 (IPS) - Sri Lanka’s tobacco and liquor industry is headed for a showdown with legislators planning to ban advertising of their products in all media by January next year.

The proposed ban has been recommended by the Presidential Task Force on tobacco, alcohol and illicit drugs, in a bid to reduce their consumption in Sri Lanka. Legislation is being prepared for this purpose.

But industry officials argue that the proposals are basically flawed and any legislation based on the report, would be grounded on misinformation.

“It is simple. We were never consulted on this issue,” says Gottfried Thoma, managing director of Ceylon Tobacco Company Ltd (CTC), Sri Lanka’s monopoly cigarette manufacturer and a subsidiary of the giant British-American Tobacco group.

“Before any policy is formulated, it is only right and reasonable that you hear the views of the other side as well,” he told IPS. “Even in a court of law, two sides are given a hearing.”

Advertising of liquor and cigarettes is presently allowed in all media except radio and television.

The committee, appointed by Sri Lankan President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga in April 1997, late last year, prepared a national policy and programme on alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs with the aim of improving the health and well being of all Sri Lankans. , Sustained reduction in use of these substances and a reduction and eventual elimination of harm related to these substances was supposed to increase productivity.

On an appeal, CTC officials met Kumaratunga last month and she has promised to chair a meeting between the company and the committee, to enable CTC to present its views.

Suresh Shah, chief executive officer of Ceylon Brewery, the country’s largest beer producer, said that they had no problems with the objectives of the national policy except that “legislators should sit down with industry and together formulate a policy that is practical and sticks to the objective.”

While Sri Lankan pro-ban lobbyists are convinced that a ban is the best way of curbing growing abuse of tobacco and liquor, the industry is angry, hurt and bitter that it was not consulted before the report was prepared.

Dr Sajeeva Ranaweera, a spokesman and member of the Presidential Task Force, said tobacco kills one person every 20 seconds around the world. Half of long-term smokers die due to tobacco-related illnesses and a quarter will not reach middle age.

Ranaweera said tobacco policies in many countries, target children who think it is fashionable to smoke, a charge the industry denies. “Statistics here show that 15 percent of the smokers start before they reach 11 years.”

Anti-smoking and anti-drinking lobbyists say that smoking and drinking attracts the young because it is regarded as a glamorous way of life and creates masculinity.

“We have no problem about moderate drinking. It is only abuse that we are worried about. Our target is to reduce per capita consumption of alcohol,” Ranaweera said, conceding however that, unlike cigarettes, there were no figures to cite consumption levels that are injurious to health.

Sri Lanka’s Alcohol and Drug Information Centre (ADIC), a non-governmental agency, is heading the community campaign against alcohol and drug use but says that raising health alarm bells against alcohol and drug use have not worked in the past.

“We have changed our strategies to concentrate on attitudes and the promotion of habits. On the health risk factor, at least 95 percent of smokers are aware of the health factor but carry on regardless because they say they die anyway some day. So why bother,” says Pubudu Sumanasekera, ADIC’s programme officer on education and training.

He said that on principle ADIC was opposed to prohibition which normally increases curiosity and spurs demand. But in this case, the group was supporting the ban as it had limited resources to fight the industry.

Both sides – the pro-ban supporters and the industry – are putting out convincing arguments to back their case but the failure by the Presidential Task Force to summon the industry to present their views, puts legislators in a slightly awkward position.

The industry says that the committee – six of whom are said to be anti-smoking and anti-drinking supporters and the others government officials who hardly attended meetings – from inception was bent on attacking the industry.

There are medical doctors, policemen, NGO representatives, an economist and government officials on the committee but no representatives from the industry.

“By not seeking our views, the report is not balanced. The committee should have looked at the problem with impartiality, and with an objective and balanced view,” Thoma said.

CTC also quoted a recent World Health Organisation (WHO) report which disproves the government version that cigarette smoking alone kills.

According to the WHO report, no estimations for tobacco- attributable mortality (in Sri Lanka) are available. “Oral cancer is the most common form of cancer in South Asia with over 90 percent attributable to prolonged exposure to tobacco and smoking,” it said.

CTC complains that the committee had failed to take into account the ramifications of its proposals on the economy and the loss to the country’s revenue, by way of taxes, and the impact on those directly and indirectly employed in the industry is colossal.

Cigarettes are the highest taxed item in Sri Lanka and, in 1997 CTC contributed 16.3 billion rupees to government coffers, bought 500 million rupees worth of tobacco leaf from farmers, spent 1.5 billion rupees on the retail trade and another 200 million rupees on advertising (with associated companies).

CTC officials said that it was unfair to put an industry, which directly or indirectly employs 300,000 people, in jeopardy with ‘short sighted’ policies.

CTC and the beer industry complain that there was little warning about an impending ban and pumped in billions of rupees into new machinery and equipment. “I would never have signed for that new machine if I knew the (PTF) recommendations were coming,” Thoma said.

Likewise Ceylon Brewery and another new brewer have spent money on new plants. Shah said foreign investors in the company had been happy that government policies (earlier) were taking a more liberal view towards soft alcohol.

“Now it is a complete reversal in policy and that is sending out a very bad signal to overseas investors,” Thoma claimed.