NAIROBI (AFP) — A law banning smoking in public places and regulating tobacco products in Kenya came into effect on Tuesday, spelling the end of a convoluted legal tussle between the government and tobacco firms.
The Tobacco Control Act, passed in parliament last year but given a nine-month implementation period, provides a legal framework to control the production, manufacture, sale, advertising and use of tobacco products.
"The main objective is to protect people's health and in terms of tobacco, you are protecting the smoker and you are also protecting people around the smoker," said James Nyikal, permanent secretary in the ministry of public health and sanitation.
According to government statistics at least 12,000 Kenyans die annually from illnesses related to tobacco use and exposure.
"Let us all accept that a majority of Kenyans are non-smokers and a few smokers are endangering the lives of those majority Kenyans," Public Health Minister Beth Mugo said on Monday.
The ban defines "public places" as offices, working areas, court buildings, educational institutions, residential areas, places of worship, police stations, prisons, markets, malls, cinemas and theatres, children's homes and playing fields.
But it allows smokers, numbering about 8.4 of the country's 35 million people -- to light up in "special designated areas."
The law bans the sale of cigarettes to people aged under 18 years, selling tobacco in a packet of less than 10 cigarettes, promoting tobacco by sponsoring public activities and branding of buildings other than those owned or leased by manufacturers.
The courts blocked previous attempts to enforce the nationwide ban on grounds that the government did not give tobacco firms enough compliance time and would force them to destroy millions of dollars worth of their products.
Last year, local authorities in the capital Nairobi and the regional town of Nakuru banned smoking in public but with mixed results.
"Vehicles emit dangerous fumes but nobody cares, toilets and sewers in this city are stinking, what makes cigarettes so bad as to warrant a ban," fumed one Nairobi smoker.
"If cigarattes are really bad, why are we allowed to buy a whole packet and not one stick?" he added.
But Nyikal defended the idea of selling cigarattes in packets.
"The idea of that is to limit the number of people who are buying. But if 10 people come together and buy one packet, then that is within the law and we cannot do anything about it," he added.
Under the ban, violators are liable to imprisonment of between six months and three years or a fine of 50,000 to three million shillings (46,000 dollars, 29,000 euros).
Smoking earns the Kenya government about five billion shillings (76 million dollars, 49 million euros) a year in taxes, but the country spends 18 billion shillings (275 million dollars) on the treatment of tobacco-related diseases, according to official figures.
Top tobacco maker, British American Tobacco, hinted the law might not adversely affect its business after all.
"Going by other countries where such bans have been imposed, the business dips by just two percent and then picks up. But I don't want to speculate at the moment," BAT's regulatory manager Julie Adell-Owino told local media.
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