MoH Urged to Rethink Proposed Graphic Health Warnings on tobacco, nicotine products

By Monica MUEMA

Stakeholders in Nyeri have asked the Ministry of Health to reconsider proposed graphic health warnings on tobacco and nicotine products to ensure the wrong warning messages are not used on products meant to help smokers quit.

This is after the Ministry of Health published newly proposed graphic health warnings to cover 80 percent of packaging across tobacco and nicotine products across the country which are meant to replace existing packaging warnings on these products.

Graphic health warnings on tobacco products are used to increase knowledge about risks associated with tobacco use and to deter initiation to smoking.

Speaking during a public participation forum at the Kenya Medical Training College in Nyeri, participants said there is need to differentiate between traditional tobacco products and new nicotine products which offer smokers a better chance of quitting the smoking vice, urging the ministry to rethink the proposal to have similar warning messages  across both traditional tobacco products and newer alternatives – saying the latter carries less risk and is a route to smokers to quit.

Dr Nick Mutisya, Vice-Secretary General Harm Reduction Society of Kenya said there is need for public sensitization on the difference between tobacco and nicotine, arguing they are not the same products.

“As a country, we miss an opportunity when we equalize cigarettes to a low nicotine product. That equalization is going to cause harm… we have made vaping sound so bad, yet it has been embraced in other countries in the US and UK. We need an understanding that nicotine is not tobacco hence the need to provide safer alternatives for people,” he said.

Some of the foreseen risks of the equalization of smoking products, he said would see people going back to smoking traditional cigarettes which are harmful noting that the differentiation of nicotine and tobacco is entrenched in the WHO Framework convention which Kenya is signatory.

 He further cautioned that vaping should not be equated to smoking a cigarette saying first world countries have been offering the e-cigarette alternative to assist smokers quit smoking.

“When the e-cigarette device can have its quantity controlled, it can work to help our smoker quit as well… we are advocating for low nicotine vapes. They are safer than a cigarette,” added Dr Mutisya.

Speaking at the same function, a cigarette smoker contributing to the discourse said unlike smoking cigarettes, vaping and nicotine pouches were products that do not cause harm to the public.

“Smoking cigarettes causes harm to the people next to you. But with products such as nicotine pouches a user can consume without affecting anybody next to him. Let us give these new products a chance because they have minimal side effects compared to the cigarette we consume today,” he said.

The law requires that warnings should be changed regularly to convey information on the many harms of tobacco and nicotine products.