by DR TONY GALE

LEGISLATIVE MEASURES in Barbados for the prevention and elimination of the morbidity and mortality caused by the manufacture, supply and use of tobacco mandate the prohibition of tobacco use at the Cricket World Cup (CWC).

The Consumer Protection Act and the Consumer Guarantee Acts were enacted and proclaimed by the Government of Barbados in 2003, and the Minister of Commerce, Consumer Affairs and Business Development has declared that the most important of the benefits of consumer protection legislation are the following:

1. The Right to Safety – to be protected against the marketing of goods and services which are hazardous to health or life.

2. The Right to Choose.

3. The Right to Education and Information.

4. The Right to be heard.

5. The Right to Representation.

6. The Right to Redress – to be compensated for harmful or sub-standard goods and services.

The significance of the consumer protection and consumer guarantee legislation is that it sets strict standards for safety and requires manufacturing and suppliers of goods and services to keep consumers informed about the real or potential risks of their products when used as intended.

They must also do so if they suspect a defect that might cause harm to consumers and must notify them or withdraw the products and compensate any consumer who might have been harmed by them.

The legislation also empowers governments to ban or order the withdrawal of any goods and services that might cause harm to any person. Ban possible

This legislation makes it possible for the Government of Barbados to ban or order the withdrawal of all tobacco products on the grounds that they are lethal; and the fact that tobacco products have been declared by the WHO to be the only class of legal products which, when used in the way intended by manufacturers and suppliers, endanger or destroy the freedom and wreck the health of all habitual users, puts them in this category. They kill 50 per cent of those who do not quit; 25 per cent prematurely. Compensation

This legislation also makes it possible for active smokers to seek and obtain financial compensation for the harmful effects caused by their use of tobacco products. People exposed to the air pollution caused by tobacco can also seek and obtain similar compensation from the persons or organisations who fail to prevent their exposure to such pollution.

The effects of this legislation will be to make two classes of persons liable to pay large sums of money in compensation.

Firstly, the manufacturers and suppliers of tobacco products, and secondly, persons and organisations providing employment and services in workplaces and public places who fail to protect their workers, consumers and any other persons from the air pollution caused by tobacco smoking.

The Government of Barbados has applied these Acts to ban or order the withdrawal of harmful products on two occasions.

Firstly, when it banned and ordered the withdrawal of supplies of bottled water which had been contaminated, and secondly, to order the withdrawal of Vioxx, a drug manufactured by Merck & Co. for the treatment of arthritis when it was discovered that it increased the risks of diseases of the heart and circulation and strokes.

Even before the introduction of consumer protection legislation, the Government took the initiative to protect individuals occupying government buildings from the hazard of exposure to the chrysotile fibers of asbestos by removing structures incorporating this material from these buildings. Previously, the Achilles heel of tobacco control advocates when they confronted the tobacco industry was that the rules of engagement in nearly all countries of the world precluded the possibility of banning or ordering the withdrawal of tobacco products.

This was a huge disadvantage comparable to public health professionals responsible for eradicating mosquito borne diseases being deprived of the means of eliminating the breeding grounds of mosquitoes.

Consequently, when the tobacco industry was challenged to justify the legitimacy of promoting the use of a lethal product, they protested that tobacco was a legal product, and that as responsible corporate citizens, it was their policy to inform the public about the risks and consequences of using tobacco. Danger to health

This is no longer so in Barbados, because the enactment of the Consumer Protection and Consumer Guarantee Acts have changed this situation so radically that all governmental agencies, all non-governmental agencies committed to public health and safety, and all consumers now have a right, as well as a duty, to demand the banning of tobacco because, being a lethal product. Its use is incompatible with the health and safety of smokers as well as non-smokers.

The Government and people of Barbados now have the weapons and the ammunition to eradicate the use of a scourge that caused 100,000,000 deaths in the 20th century and if allowed to continue will cause 1000,000,000 more in the 21st century.

It is very likely that they will challenge the legitimacy of one of the richest and most influential multinational corporations in the world all the more so since 90 per cent of their staff are non-smokers, 80 per cent of their homes are smoke free and, since 1982 through voluntary agreements, the prohibition of smoking in workplaces has increased from 29 to 90 per cent.