Smoking in cars in spotlight

2004-09-14 22:00

Cape Town - The health department is to seek legal opinion on the feasibility of outlawing smoking in cars with child passengers.

It also hopes to stop psychiatric hospitals handing out cigarettes to patients, to control smoking in prisons, and is looking at the possibility of legislating for self-extinguishing cigarettes.

Department and ministry officials revealed this on Tuesday during a briefing to parliament's health portfolio committee on proposed amendments to tobacco control legislation.

An amending bill was published for public comment in October last year, and director for health promotion Zanele Mthembu told the committee the department was still weighing up the submissions that had been made and discussing the amount of fines with the justice department.

Health was seeking to have the fine for smoking in a prohibited place raised from R200 to up to R500 for a first offence, and to set a fine starting at R20 000 for a manager or owner who permitted illegal smoking on the premises.

Self-extinguishing cigarettes on agenda

Noting that the bill proposed a ban on cigarette sales in hospitals, she said she believed some psychiatric institutions were handing out cigarettes to patients.

She said the department might consider a proposal to legislate for cigarettes that self-extinguished if they were not puffed on for a few minutes.

Responding to questions from members of the committee, Patricia Lambert, special adviser to Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, told the MPs there had been a proposal in an early draft of the bill to ban smoking in cars with children.

However, the constitution limited the state's ability to go "roaring in" to private homes, and possibly into private vehicles as well.

The department had merely discussed this issue, and she would now "certainly get legal opinion on that".

Questioned by committee chair James Ngculu on a proposal in the bill to ban tobacco-sponsored bursaries and scholarships, she said the industry wanted people to believe it took corporate social responsibility seriously.

"But here lies the rub. The profits are blood money..."

She said the department was negotiating a policy with the department of correctional services to protect inmates who did not want to smoke.

'Regulation must be reasonable, practical'

Chairperson of the Tobacco Institute of Southern Africa Francois van der Merwe said after the meeting that the industry accepted that tobacco products had to be regulated.

However, there had to be a balance, and the proposed revisions to the bill were starting to push balance "out of the door".

"We are committed to work with the department on regulation, but we feel that regulation must be reasonable, practical and enforceable."

He said a ban on social investments would put paid to black economic empowerment in the agricultural sector of the tobacco industry.

- SAPA