SMOKERS, this is your time to exhale.

Members of the public, both smokers and non-smokers alike, are being called upon by the Senate’s Select Committee to offer submissions on the Tobacco Control Bill 2008, a newspaper advertisement stated yesterday.

The controversial bill seeks to impose a penalty of $10,000 for anyone found smoking or even holding a lighted cigarette in a public place, including pool halls, bars and clubs.

On November 18, when Health Minister Jerry Narace piloted the bill in the Upper House, he said the legislation was long overdue and quoted a number of studies and statistics which highlighted the dangers of smoking.

During that debate, Narace said in spite of statistics which showed cardiovascular disease, cancers, diabetes and cerebrovascular disease were the country’s leading cause of deaths for the past three decades, the sale of cigarettes had been on the increase.

But Independent Senator Helen Drayton, in the same debate, was of the view that the Government had gone too far and she would not support the bill in its current state.

Apart from Drayton’s claim that the penalties of the bill are ’excessive’ and that it appeared that the intention of the legislation was to ’criminalise smoking’ her main grievance was the bill’s intrusion on the rights of a home-owner.

A housekeeper who makes a claim against a homeowner, inside his own home, would be protected by the bill in its current form, Drayton said.

She also suggested the bill be sent before a special committee to be refined and adjusted.

The bill is currently before a five-member special select committee chaired by Local Government Minister Hazel Manning.

And the bill can be viewed in its entirety on the Parliament’s website at www.ttparliament.org.

Submissions on the bill can either be e-mailed to njaggassar@ttparliament.org or sent via mail to the Secretary of the Special Select Committee at the Red House on Abercromby Street in Port of Spain.

However, you have only until tomorrow at 4 p.m. to make your suggestions.