DILI, 05 june 2021 (TATOLI) –Alliance National Control Tabacco Timor Leste (ANCT-TL) recognizing tobacco companies with theirs allies still denying on responsibility on the harms of people deadly caused by tobacco risk.
According to note said, Timor-Leste government has ratified the international convention for tabacco control in December 2004. The government has ratified law article 5.3 to develop a prevention policy for the tobacco control in Timor Leste.
Nonetheless the government has not implement the convention for 12 years since the government it has been ratified. As a consequence, the promotional activities and expansion of market for new tabacco products significantly increase and widely spread in many years in Timor Leste.
Since In 2016, the Timor-Leste’s government successfully approved a policy for tobacco control. Law no. 14/2016 is a national comprehensive tobacco control policy. It is to prohibit any promotion advertisement and sponsorship activities towards and from tobacco companies and the allies.
The article 12 labeling and article 13 is about Health Warning. However, ANCT noted that during the past three months of lock down period, the enforcement agencies had not done the inspections regularly and the sale of tobacco product is increased and widely spread in the country for many years.
ANCT-TL has initiative to conduct survey to gather evidences of the trader entity’s activity during the emergency state or during the pandemic. This survey is developing specifically to observe all the marketing activities to track the prevalence of illicit cigarettes from the relevant entity that mentioned.
The objective of monitoring is to identify implementation status of Decree law Tobacco No. 14/2016, article 12 (Labeling), article 13 (Health Warnings), article 14 (Prohibited Messages) Article 19 (Prohibitions), Article 20 (Advertising Activities), Article 21 (Sponsorship) during Emergency State of 2021.
During observation and informal interview, there was no sponsorship activity uncovered. four tobacco retailers out of 150 in Dili have received cigarette display case made of transparent glass for free by tobacco distributors, which is a form of promotion at the point-of-sale.
The findings clearly showed that the commercialization activity of illicit tobacco products is increasing during the period of emergency state, since the authority did not do the regular inspections and control as usual.
The commercialization of illicit cigarettes is an activity that majority of retailers commit. And follow by promotion of tobacco brand of tobacco product, which the Decree Law No. 14/2016 prohibited. Article 12 – Labelling and Tobacco products packaging, article 19, 20, 21- prohibited Promotion, Advertisement and Sponsorship to any activities.
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