The Bangladesh Health Reporters Forum has submitted its full position paper to the parliamentary standing committee on health, urging that the long-pending amendment to the Smoking and Tobacco Products Usage (Control) Act be passed in this budget cycle rather than deferred again.
The paper, drafted by the BHRF tobacco-control working group in consultation with PROGGA, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, and members of the National Tobacco Control Cell, makes seven specific recommendations. Among them: an outright ban on point-of-sale display, larger graphic health warnings covering 90 percent of pack surface area, and the inclusion of e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products under the same regulatory umbrella as combustible cigarettes.
"Every year this amendment slips, the country pays in cancer and cardiovascular admissions for a generation already lost to the industry's marketing creativity," BHRF President Dr. Ashraful Alam said in a statement releasing the paper. "We are not asking parliament to invent anything new — every recommendation in this paper is consistent with what FCTC parties have already implemented."
Industry pushback is expected. In the run-up to the last revision, tobacco companies funded a public-health-flavoured campaign that argued any restrictions on e-cigarettes would push smokers back to combustibles. Independent reviews have not supported that claim.
The full paper will be available on the BHRF policy archive from the end of this week.
