| James Kon |
THE difficulty in regulating advertisements and sale of tobacco products, including e-cigarettes on social media, as well as the use of e-cigarettes are among the challenges in Brunei Darussalam’s fight against smoking to make the nation smoke-free by 2035.
This was revealed by Nurliza binti Haji Abdul Halim, the scientific officer of health regulations under the Ministry of Health in her presentation at the Dangers of Smoking workshop attended by Science teachers yesterday at the Ministry of Education
Other challenges she mentioned are the prevalence of illicit cigarettes and cross-border smuggling of tobacco products via mouse trails and open access via sea or river.
She said following the country’s move to raise taxes on cigarettes to reduce demand, there was a decreasing trend of import declaration of cigarettes. Her presentation showed in the year 2010, a total of 315,232.01 kg or 24,000,000 sticks of cigarettes were declared and the number dropped to just 2.18 kg or 594,200 sticks of cigarettes in 2014.
She said Brunei Darussalam has ratified the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in June 2004.
A section of the participants at the workshop.
The Ministry of Health is utilising measures under an approach known as ‘MPOWER’ to implement effective intervention to reduce demand for tobacco.
In MPOWER, she said M stands for monitor tobacco use and prevention policies, P is protect people from tobacco smoke, O stands for offer help to quit, W is warn people about danger of tobaccos smoke, E is enforce ban on advertising, promotion and sponsorship while R is raise taxes to reduce demand.
Under the ‘Offer help to quit’, she said the nurse-led community smoking cessation services are provided in all health centres in Brunei Darussalam, while one hospital-based smoking cessation service is provided at Pengiran Isteri Hajjah Mariam Hospital, Temburong.
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