Anti-tobacco UN treaty extended to Cayman
(CNS): The World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) has been extended to the Cayman Islands, the first UK Overseas Territory in the region to request and receive this extension. Cayman officials said that the FCTC, one of the most rapidly and widely embraced treaties in the history of the United Nations, would allow the development and expansion of more comprehensive tobacco control.
In February 2019, Public Health England (PHE) said that while the UK was “highly compliant with the FCTC”, its OTs had “mixed compliance”, but it was providing help through a four-year project to improve this. PHE said that this support focused on three sections of the FCTC: Articles 8, 11 and 13, which relate to smoke-free public places, regulations on packaging and labelling of tobacco products, and a ban on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, respectively.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Nick Gent noted in a press release on World No Tobacco Day, 31 May, that these three Articles had to be satisfied before the FCTC could be extended to Cayman. The release explained that Article 8 requires the adoption and implementation of laws that protect citizens from tobacco smoke in indoor workplaces, public transport and other public places.
Article 11 requires that tobacco packaging and labelling do not promote tobacco products by false, misleading and/or deceptive means or in any way that may create an erroneous impression of the health hazards of any tobacco product. It also stipulates that health warning messages must be present for each unit packet and package of tobacco products.
Lastly, Article 13 requires a comprehensive ban on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship in an effort to reduce the consumption of such products.
“Satisfying these articles does not mean, of course, that there is no work left to be done,” Dr Gent said. “We are aware that more work is needed when it comes to addressing some issues pertaining to packaging and labelling, as well as ensuring more is done when it comes to smoking in public places, but Cayman has come tremendously far in what it has done to date, and getting this extension is a fantastic achievement or our Islands.”
As tobacco consumption is changing, e-cigarettes and vaping are now part of the ministry’s focus. The National Drug Council’s Cayman Islands Student Drug Use Survey (CISDUS) 2022 showed that while the use of traditional cigarettes is on the decline among young people, falling to 2.5% last year from 5% in the 2020 survey, vaping is on the rise.
The use of e-cigarettes and vapes increased from 17.3% of students admitting to using these products in 2020 to 21% in 2022. Around 66% of CISDUS respondents said that while they believe cigarettes cause great harm, only 30% of respondents believe there is great harm in smoking e-cigarettes.
Health and Wellness Minister Sabrina Turner said her ministry is undertaking a comprehensive review of the knowledge gaps concerning e-cigarettes and vapes. She said that she and her team “share the growing concern in the community as it relates to misinformation, access and use of these products, not only among children and teens but among all of our residents”.
Work to identify the necessary action to address the gaps include a legislative review as well as more public education and prevention programming. “We will be engaging our stakeholders and the community for assistance and buy-in,” Turner said.
These efforts are supported by the convention. “As a legal framework, the FCTC will allow policymakers to develop and expand a more comprehensive approach to tobacco control,” Turner said. This would give the ministry “the flexibility to address whatever trend or product comes next” and would “pay dividends in strengthening the health and wellness of our population, present and future”.
The FCTC’s aim of promoting public health aligns perfectly with the health ministry’s focus, the release said. It is an evidence-based treaty that reaffirms the right of all people to the highest standard of health by tackling some of the causes and consequences of the global tobacco epidemic.
According to the World Health Organization, tobacco kills more than eight million people each year. Seven million deaths are attributed to direct tobacco consumption, while as many as 1.2 million are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke.
Tobacco use is the only common risk factor for the three main non-communicable diseases in the Caribbean, which account for nearly 80% of all deaths within the region: cardiovascular diseases, cancer and diabetes. Here in Cayman, the top two causes of death are cardiovascular diseases and malignant neoplasms, both inextricably linked to smoking.
For smokers who want to quit, there are still spaces for the upcoming smoking cessation classes, which run every Wednesday for seven weeks, starting this evening, 31 May, at the Cayman Islands Hospital Hibiscus Conference Room B, from 5:15pm to 6:45pm.
For more information or to sign up, call 244-2889 or 244-2621, or email sarah.frederick@hsa.ky or nola.sanderson@hsa.ky
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Category: Health, Medical Health
I’m all for local laws regarding smoking but the UN and the WHO getting involved reeks of incrementalism.
A tiny and mostly unelected minority of global elites should not be dictating policy anywhere. It’s all about control and if you think that’s not what they’re aiming for, just read what they say and believe them. They don’t care about your health either. Wake up people.
Rock on. Power to the people.
Absolutely!
You fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of the UN and WHO in this context. They help provide information and guidance so that each country doesn’t have to “invent the wheel’ for these things.
Very useful for a small country with limited staffing resources and knowledge.
Very oppressive to those that can’t stand up to them.
I wish outdoor places had smoking areas that were enforced, I have a young child that I don’t want exposed to smoke and I think it is so unfair that you can’t enjoy sitting outside somewhere without having to inhale other peoples smoke. But even the current 10ft law isn’t enforced as with every other law here.
In Cayman, you can find dunces who will smoke while pumping their own gas, flicking lit cigarette to go in to pay…and I guess, buy more smokes. It’s a special place.
Funny I’ve been here almost 50 years and I’ve never seen someone at the pump here with a lit cigarette. Are you sure your statement about dunces doesn’t apply elsewhere that you’ve had experience living?
Better if there were no more public nicotine use areas at all, and smoking/vaping regulations phasing-out use to zero by say, 2025. Nicotine addiction is a terrible personal vice and shouldn’t involve any secondary parties.
The law is flawed in this regard. A 10ft gap between smoking areas and non-smoking areas would leave large areas of outdoor bars as a “no mans land”. Unworkable.
The law on smoking in outdoor bars/restaurants at present is that every outdoor bar must have a designated no-smoking area while the vast majority can be for smoking (even at the bar itself). It should be the other way round. The premises should be essentially non-smoking with a separate smoking area away from the main seating areas – a bit like at an airport!
Hundreds of pre teens now regularly Vape.
With parents Consent.
Where’s the TAX to pay for the forthcoming teenage lung transplants?!!
The insurance companies will not foot this stupid preventable crisis.
In this day and age, with the warning on smoking been Gwan for about 90 years ( originally from the German doctors /scientists of the era), you would have to be off your rocker to keep doing it. Just ban smoking entirely like New Zealand.
Islands largest liquor and wine merchant not going to like that.Cest la Vie…
ok. so smoking ciggaretts is bad. good to know, but yet we have a group here trying desperately to legalize SMOKING weed???? How the hell is that.
its like saying guns are bad but rockets are not……..
Weed is actually better for you to smoke than cigarettes. It’s still not good for your health but it doesn’t contain the chemicals that cigarettes do. Also, you get the THC side effect which is pleasant. Tobacco doesn’t do anything.
The tar and glue is in the paper.
Truth is you seem like a special kind of stupid
.. meanwhile this tobacco stuff is legal to purchase recreationally, and CMR is banning the discussion of a medically prescribed plant on that platform in times when its legalization for local production are not only needed, but were promised by Julianna when she ran recently. Just to steal votes from Elvis, obviously, and blatantly too because she knew she wasn’t going to run again.
So backward.
Smoke em’ if you got em’.
Sod off, snowflakes.
I worry more about the dump than someone smoking a cigarette.
Plastic kills more people than tobacco. Where is the anti-plastic treaty?
Micro Plastic is found in umbilical cords and mother’s milk, yet single use plastic items and overpackaged goods are not banned or even restricted. I am not even talking about marine life.
Smoking has been practiced in one form or another since ancient times. It helps people some to release stress, just like alcohol. While I don’t smoke, never even tried, or drink, as long as they smoke away from me, I am fine.
We are going nuts with prohibitions. Shutting down animal farms in Europe, offering insects as meat replacement or rationing it to 10g per day? Environmentalism as a new religion?
Right with the styrofoam cup one.
That is a make believe statistic. In North America 480,000/360mln die annually from smoking, and tens of millions more from indirect smoking related complications, cvd, diabetes etc. Whereas Worldwide, there are an estimated 400,000/8bln plastic attributed deaths. Shocking, and mostly from developing world, but not even close to the same echelon as deaths from tobacco products.
Go work at a regular bar, you know, the ones where the name does not begin with “Cigar”.
you do not understand health and safety or the law generally. knowingly putting your empolyees at risk is a crime.
Why would you apply to work at a Cigar Bar if you do not want to be exposed to cigar smoke? I do not smoke cigars, so I would not go there. However, expecting the owner to change their business model because you don’t want to find another place of employment is not the answer, and quite frankly, it sounds very entitled.
as i said, you do not understand liability laws.
I don’t think you do either mate.
So, people who want to ruin their bodies with cigarettes are now to be controlled? Might want to consult CIG about that — they benefit from the duties of the smokes.
So many committees, so much money. What will this cost us? Are we going to force people to lose weight also? Including MPs?
I’m all in favour of restricting where people can smoke in public, but we do that already. What possible difference can this make for us, other than jetting a couple of MPs off to wonderland for conferences? WHAT WILL THIS COST US???
“cardiovascular diseases, cancer and diabetes. ” Causation doesn’t equal correlation. That statement implies that ONLY cigarette smoking is responsible for the 80% of deaths here. Diabetes in particular, is far more relational to genes and being overweight.
Dying is the ultimate price that some will court, but maybe they’ll be lucky and only get throat cancer and/or suffer a tongue glossectomy, or voice box laryngectomy. The rest of us will also suffer via third hand smoke air pollution, revolting environmental cigarette garbage, insurance premium hikes, and HSA subsidies. All to pretend it’s still 1950 – ignoring a century of science. Smoking will also accelerate CVD, atherosclerosis artery hardening, memory loss/dymentia, and type 2 diabetes onset. Separate but related costs for each.
ok. so smoking ciggaretts is bad. good to know, but yet we have a group here trying desperately to legalize SMOKING weed???? How the hell is that.
its like saying guns are bad but rockets are not……..
LOL, but you are Okay with the Dump’s toxic fumes and leachate? You’re exposed to it 24×7.
truly, this is the FUNNIEST comment.
Dr Gent should order some large adhesive-backed warning labels for our taxis, gardening trucks, and buses that belch black soot under any throttle input. If the RCIPS are not going to enforce the emissions guidelines under the Traffic Law, and the DVDL are going to continue to renew these nuisance vehicles, then please put a big bright label on them with large font to safely warn those that might have the misfortune of following them.
Per the Tobacco Law 2008, there should already be a lot less smoking in public places than there continues to be.
CIG could take a big step by clarifying / publicising whether vapes are allowed indoors (in public spaces) or not. – Regardless of the answer we would all benefit from knowing. (Then we can argue if the answer is the right choice. 🙂
No they are not. See Tobacco Regulations 2017. Nicotine is a regulated tobacco product regardless of how it is ingested. There doesn’t need to be explicit differentiation on sharing toxic smoke and vapour – for the inconsiderate raised without a handle on common courtesy.
ban smoking inside of cigar bars here….huge health risk to employees.
They have ventilation systems designed to filter smoke. So no, it’s not a health risk for employees.
wrong…there is no ventilation system that makes environment safe. if so…why can’t all bars have it and then people can smoke in all bars?
Why on earth would someone apply to work or accept work in a cigar bar if they don’t like the smoke? If we’re talking law suits let’s talk about contributory negligence.
how a out asking the employees how they feel? and if they say they don’t like it ask… so why did you take the job?