Akash Sama­roo

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Can­cer So­ci­ety (TTCS) is in full sup­port of the en­force­ment of a to­bac­co law which is now forc­ing re­tail out­lets to lim­it the dis­play of cig­a­rettes to one dis­penser on­ly.

While the law is not new and has been in the To­bac­co Con­trol Act since 2012, en­force­ment on­ly be­gan on Mon­day (Sep­tem­ber 26).

The Sec­tion 9(4) reg­u­la­tion, which states, “No more than one cig­a­rette dis­penser shall be pro­vid­ed per out­let,” has had a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on larg­er su­per­mar­kets, which had grown ac­cus­tomed to hav­ing, in some cas­es, a dis­penser over each cash reg­is­ter in the es­tab­lish­ment.

And while the Su­per­mar­kets As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SATT) and West In­di­an To­bac­co Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (WIT­CO) have ex­pressed con­cerns that this will on­ly dri­ve cus­tomers to­wards il­le­git­i­mate ven­dors, the TTCS is hap­py with it.

“We at the TTCS sup­port this ini­tia­tive and ap­pre­ci­ate this move as it fur­ther em­pow­ers in­di­vid­u­als to make these small yet im­pact­ful changes to their lifestyles. It is nev­er too late to quit smok­ing. It is im­por­tant to our na­tion and our pop­u­la­tion,” chair­man Dr As­ante Le Blanc said.

Le Blanc said as a re­gion that is af­fect­ed by NCDs, this is a step in the right di­rec­tion and it is time for the na­tion, in­clud­ing the cor­po­rate sec­tor, to pro­tect the health of so­ci­ety.

“It is time to en­force these laws and it is time for cor­po­rate T&T to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and sup­port the health of our na­tion and re­gion. If we are not healthy, there is no wealth in our re­gion. It is time to piv­ot to dif­fer­ent sec­tors. Much more can be done to pro­tect our health.”

Le Blanc said the so­ci­ety will now al­so be push­ing for va­p­ing laws as well. Cur­rent­ly, the coun­try has no va­p­ing reg­u­la­tions.

Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day sent ques­tions to the Min­istry of Health’s To­bac­co Con­trol Unit ask­ing why the to­bac­co law is now be­ing en­forced and al­so the de­sired ef­fect of the reg­u­la­tion. How­ev­er, no re­sponse was re­ceived up to late yes­ter­day.

On Tues­day, WIT­CO told Guardian Me­dia that it be­lieves the pur­pose of the law is to re­duce the de­mand for to­bac­co prod­ucts.