PORT-OF-SPAIN - Faced with strong opposition to the draconian measures contained in the Tobacco Control Bill, the Trinidad government on Tuesday relaxed some of the prohibitions and rolled back some of the harsher penalties.

Minister of Health Jerry Narace, in winding up debate in the Senate, said he was backing down with regret and that it bothered him to have to concede on some of the points.

He said the domestic worker was being put at as much risk as the children in the homes, conceding that home could not be defined as a workplace, except where it was used for the purpose of "manufacture, distribution and trade" of tobacco products.

He said the amendments came in the interest of getting the legislation passed.

Government also removed the ban on sale of single cigarettes which affected small vendors and the low income smoker.

It also slashed the penalties for a number of offences, including prohibition on sales by minors, on public displays of tobacco products and on the sales of tobacco products in certain places.

The penalty for these offences, on summary conviction, was reduced from a fine of TT$100 000 to TT$50 000 for the first offence; from TT$200 000 to TT$100 000 for the second offence and TT$300 000 to TT$100 000 and imprisonment for nine months for the third offence.

Upon conviction on indictment (in the High Court), the fine has been reduced from TT$500 000 and TT$200 000 and imprisonment of one year.

However, government proceeded with the legislation and its basic offences despite the complaints of Independent senators.

Attorney General John Jeremie in defending the legislation, said there were "very powerful interests at work" in the tobacco industry.

Referring to this lobby as the "tobacco complex", he said years before the Tobacco Amendment Bill came to parliament there were interest groups preparing to oppose it.

'This complex is as powerful as the complex which drives the war machines in certain parts of the world,' he said, adding that he was not saying this lightly.

Jeremie, who taught at the University of the West Indies, said one of his students ended up in a tobacco company.

"And her primary purpose - and this was a directive given to her by her superiors - was to monitor and track what was going on in terms of domestic legislative activity ... and she wanted to know what was going on in terms of anti-tobacco legislation," he said, adding that she knew he was attorney general.

Independent Senator Gail Merhair noted that while the consent age for sex was 16, the age for smoking was 18.

"Is Government saying it is okay to have consensual sex, but not to smoke?" she asked.

Merhair, who noted that her office was situated next to a Montessori school and behind the El Socorro taxi stand, wanted to know how the clause which forbids smoking within 15 metres of a school would be enforced. (Trinidad Express)