HEALTH-SRI LANKA: Rights Concern Stalls Tobacco, Alcohol Ad Ban

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Feb 19 1999 (IPS) - A proposed ban on cigarette and alcohol advertising in the media, strongly opposed by Sri Lankan producers, has been delayed because of concerns about its implications on fundamental rights, a government minister said.

“We find that the draft legislation paving the way for the ban … is too wide in scope and could interfere with some constitutional provisions relating to fundamental rights,” Prof. Gamini Lakshman Peiris, minister of justice and constitutional affairs told IPS.

In addition he said there could be problems regarding foreign investments in the tobacco and alcohol industry. The ban was due to be enforced from January this year.

Cigarette and liquor manufacturers with foreign collaboration like the island’s biggest beer-maker Ceylon Brewery, have invested millions of rupees in new machinery and equipment, much before plans to enforce a ban on ads were known.

Suresh Shah, chief executive of Ceylon Brewery said foreign investors in the company had been happy with government policies. “The proposed ban is a complete reversal of policy and sending out a very bad signal to overseas investors,” he said.

An official of the Alcohol and Drug Information Centre (ADIC), a non-governmental agency heading a community campaign against alcohol and drug abuse, said that industrial pressure against a ban may have contributed to its delay.

“The industry is a very powerful body and they would do whatever is necessary, in their interests, to stall the ban or circumvent it,” he said.

However, Minister Peiris denied suggestions that the government was having second thoughts because of opposition from the industry. He said the ban would be implemented once the legislation is re-drafted to clear some of the doubts expressed.

The proposed advertising ban had been recommended by the Presidential Task Force on Tobacco, Alcohol and Illicit drugs, in an effort to reduce the consumption of alcohol and tobacco use in Sri Lanka.

The committee was appointed by President Chandrika Kumaratunga in April 1997, and later in the same year, it finalised a national policy and programme on alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs. Included in that was the advertising ban.

The goal of the policy is to improve the health and well being of all Sri Lankans, increase productivity by achieving a sustained reduction in the use of these substances and a reduction and eventual elimination of harm related to these substances, according to a committee document.

Industry officials, opposed to the ban, say any legislation arising out of the task force recommendations, would be flawed because it is based on wrong information.

“We were never consulted on this issue,” says Gottfried Thoma, managing director of Ceylon Tobacco Company Ltd., Sri Lanka’s monopoly cigarette manufacturer and local subsidiary of the transnational British-American Tobacco (BAT).

“Before any policy is formulated, it is only right and reasonable that you hear the views of the other side as well,” Thoma told IPS in an interview in September last year, adding that a recent World Health Organisation (WHO) report disproves government statements that cigarette smoking alone is a killer.

According to the WHO report, no estimations for tobacco- attributable mortality in Sri Lanka are available. “However oral cancer is the most commonest form of cancer in the southern part of Asia with over 90 percent attributable to prolonged exposure to tobacco and smoking,” it said.

A Ceylon Tobacco Company spokesperson said last week that they felt the ban had been delayed since President Kumaratunga had been unable to chair a promised meeting between company officials and members of the task force.

But the committee says that public representation was called for, through the media on this issue, and the industry did not respond. “Were they waiting for an invitation to present their views?” asked a task force member.

According to current rules, advertising of alcohol and cigarettes is permitted in newspapers but restricted on television through a state-imposed code of ethnics.

However with an eye on the impending ban, alcohol – particularly beer manufacturers – and the Ceylon Tobacco company have pumped in money, in recent months, into giant advertising

campaigns and sports sponsorships which would also be disallowed.

With the West becoming more health conscious, Asia and South Asia in particular have become “hunting” grounds for cigarette firms seeking new clients and expanded markets.

According to Dr Sajeeva Ranaweera, a spokesman for the presidential committee that prepared the national policy, 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,” Ranaweera said in an interview last year.