It will take at least two years before cigarette packs in T&T display pictures warning against the ill effects of smoking, says Jean-Pierre Coudray, managing director of West Indian Tobacco Company (WITCO).He was commenting on a decision made at the 35th meeting of Caricom's Council for Trade and Economic Development (Coted) that all cigarettes sold and distributed in the region must start carrying pictorial health warnings by the end of this year.
This means that cigarette packets, which currently have text on them warning of the likely impact of smoking on the health of users, will also have to carry pictures and pictograms, depicting diseases that may arise from the consumption of tobacco products.
"Here in T&T it is a slightly complicated situation. We have the T&T Bureau of Standards that is responsible for labelling. When the decision is made in T&T that requires us to do that it may take another 24 months before that takes place because of the logistics," Coudray told the T&T Guardian.He said there is no consensus among Caricom countries as yet on the decision and T&T has not reached the stage where that decision ready to be enforced.
Du Coudray said in business and logistical terms, it will take time to be implemented."This will be very costly as we will need to modify machines, or have new machines that will do the printing of photos on the packages. T&T is a small market, there are no companies in T&T that make these machines so we will have to go abroad to buy them. We are part of the BAT Group and of course they will assist us in doing this. It will be complicated," he said.
The Caricom Secretariat has described the decision as an "historic" one.It said all member states present at the meeting, which was chaired by Jamaica's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade AJ Nicholson, voted in favour of accepting the new requirements as the regional standard.
"Caricom member states have now taken a major step in meeting a significant obligation under Article 11 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) to which most member states are signatories and which entered into force in February 2005," the statement said.
Article 11 calls on countries which are parties to the Convention, within three years after entry into force, to adopt and implement effective measures to ensure tobacco packages are labelled according to guidelines developed by the World Health Organisation's FCTC Secretariat.
"The Convention calls for parties to, among other requirements, implement rotating health warnings on tobacco packaging that cover at least 30 per cent–ideally 50 per cent–of the display areas, which may include pictures or pictograms," the Caricom Secretariat said.
"In adopting the regional standard on tobacco labelling, Caricom countries would have met this important obligation," it added.
"In so doing, Caricom member states have also met the related obligation under the Port-of-Spain Declaration (2007) on Non-Communicable Diseases. All manufacturers, importers, retailers and other entities engaged in the production and or trade of tobacco products within any member state of CARICOM need to comply with the regional standards," the statement said.