Tobacco display continues unabated despite stringent laws

Woman start smoking with somebody else fingers holding the burning match. [Courtesy]

The Ministry of Health is concerned over the continued flouting of sections of tobacco laws after a research found that tobacco advertising is still going on unabated.

Traders in tobacco and its products are flouting the law by displaying their products, the research found.

The research dubbed ‘Tobacco Adverstising, Promotion and Product Display at Points of Sale’ by the Kenya Tobacco Control Alliance (KETCA) has found that almost all tobacco vendors are advertising or promoting tobacco products.

After the research done in Nairobi, Vihiga, Tharaka Nithi and Kakamega counties, it was found that only three vendors of the 400 visited by the researchers complied with Kenya’s current tobacco legislation.

The research found that the vendors were equally distributed within the commercial areas.

General stores constituted slightly over a quarter of the vendors followed by kiosks and stationary street vendors, with the three categories of vendors comprising 75 per cent of all the dealers surveyed.

“Display of tobacco products was most commonly observed in tobacco promotion, advertising and sponsorship violation,” reads the report.

“After cigarettes, the most commonly displayed products were snuff, shisha, and loose tobacco,” said lead researcher Dr Salome Nyambura of Kenyatta University. The Tobacco Control Act 2007 prohibits the display of tobacco products.