BAN TOBACCO SALES NEAR SCHOOLS, GOVT TOLD

GOVERNMENT

must ban advertising and selling of tobacco products near school premises if learners are to concentrate on school without being swayed into deviant behaviour of smoking, Zambian Alliance for Tobacco Control vice president, Aaron Chansa, has said.

Mr Chansa said display of tobacco products at points of sale near schools constitutes, in itself, advertising and promotion of the products to school-going children.

He said in an interview that this indiscriminate and careless advertising and selling of tobacco products is detrimental to the discipline, health and education of children.

“The display of the tobacco products and use thereof around and within school premises stimulate impulse buying of the products by learners.

It also gives the impression that it is socially acceptable for tobacco to be consumed by anyone without exception.

“We urge the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education to immediately put an end to this retrogressive practice. It is bad and ruining children in schools,” Mr Chansa said.

Both the display and the consumption of the tobacco products, Mr Chansa said, make it very difficult for tobacco consumers to quit smoking.

“Children, adolescents and other young people are particularly vulnerable to the promotional effects of product display.

To ensure that points of sale of tobacco products do not have any promotional elements, Zambia as a party to the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on

Tobacco Control should introduce a total ban on any display or sale of the said products, including fixed retail outlets and street vendors close to any school,” Mr Chansa said.

He said even tobacco vending machines should be banned because, by their very presence, they are a means of advertising or promotion under the terms of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Mr Chansa said tobacco adverts make smoking appear to be the in-thing. The adverts spontaneously increase the children, adolescents and young people’s desire to smoke. This is the more reason why the new dawn administration must act on this matter with the urgency it deserves.