Head of Tobacco Control in the Ministry of Health’s Department of Non-Communicable Diseases Dorcas Kiptui has reiterated that advertising cigarettes and other tobacco products using social media platforms is illegal.
According to Kiptui, some players in the tobacco industry are increasingly using social media to market the highly addictive product to consumers, despite Kenya having banned the advertising of cigarettes in traditional forms of media in 2007 following the passing of the Tobacco Act.
While speaking on Monday, May 23, Kiptui added that tobacco sellers are using Social media platforms including; Facebook and Instagram to evade the law meant to protect Kenyan consumers against exposure to harmful promotions.
She further argued that such promotions increase local consumption of tobacco, especially encouraging children and youths to start smoking.
“All forms of advertising, promotion and sponsorship are banned including on the internet so these people you see selling on Facebook, Instagram and on any other social media and even blatantly online are violating the law,” she said.
In addition, Kiptui said that, the MoH needs to work in tandem with other government agencies to implement the Tobacco Act on social media platforms, and pinpoint users who infringe them to solve the problem.
“We are going to work with other agencies including the Communication Authority, CA, to strengthen the enforcement and also to work with other governments to manage cross border advertising,” she added.
According to Kiptanui, the MoH is set to keep on sensitizing Kenyans on the harmful effects of smoking Tobacco to one’s health, especially with the coming World No-Tobacco Day.
“We are further going to strengthen the tobacco cessation and most importantly the community awareness so that people can know the harmfulness of tobacco products,” she said.
Likewise, Kiptui stated that complete bans on tobacco promotion on social media can reduce the rate of youth smokers and support adult smokers to quit. Moreover, once you get hooked to tobacco at an earlier age, it gradually becomes hard to stop using the drug which kills approximately 8 million people per year.
