Local cigarette manufacturer West Indian Tobacco Company (WITCO) has given the tobacco legislation the thumbs down, even though amendments have been recommended by the Select Committee of the Senate.

Jean-Pierre du Coudray, WITCO’s managing director, said the Bill was anything ’but sensible and balanced’ and not at all ’workable’.

Du Coudray also said that some of the measures in the legislation were just ’too radical’ and will likely be met with some resistance from some consumers.

’For example, there is a part in the Bill that put a total ban on the display of cigarettes, even though cigarettes are a legal product. There is also another part in the Bill where they are proposing to ban the ten-pack cigarettes and offer only 20-pack cigarettes,’ he said during a telephone interview.

Du Coudray was, however, quick to point out that the company was all in favour of tobacco legislation, and believed the Government took a step in the right direction when it moved to regulate the tobacco industry. He said this is why WITCO had agreed to meet with the Government and other stakeholders to discuss the issue, and to work with them to ’make sure that the final bill is a sensible and well-balanced piece of legislation that will protect the rights of all citizens, both smokers and non-smokers’.

’But unfortunately, the Bill that is being debated right now, in our humble opinion, is anything but sensible and balanced. How can you justify sending someone to jail for six months or wanting to charge them half a million for smoking in an event or party or in a non-smoking area,’ he said.

Du Coudray said WITCO was invited to make submissions during the consultation process to which it complied, but said ’only a small percentage of those submissions are reflected on the Bill...it is not at all balanced’.

Du Coudray also said that while the Government was ’looking up’ to other first world countries to determine best practices for tobacco control, it should recognise that some of these countries ’were working on legislation for as long as 30 years, so the society in those countries have been taken on a long journey to tobacco control’.

’This new Bill to be debated in the Parliament is really taking the people of Trinidad and Tobago from zero to 100 and, in some cases, beyond 100 in one step,’ he added.