Africa Economy: Kenya urged to increase taxation on tobacco products

A team of the International Tobacco Control experts on Tuesday urged Kenya to embark on reducing access to and affordability of tobacco products through taxation.

The experts further said that the country has to strengthen enforcement of the ban on the sale of cigarettes by single sticks.

"The implementation of Kenya's Act requires strengthening and improved enforcement to address weaknesses across key policy domains that include health warnings, tobacco taxation, and public education," Professor Geoffrey Fong, the project Principal Investigator said on Tuesday in Nairobi.

He said that the country has to strengthen the current health warnings by using pictorial health warnings on at least 50 percent of the top part of the front and back of the packet as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).

"Kenya is making good strides so far but the government must ban misleading deceptive messaging such as mild, light and low tar and also strengthen enforcement of the ban on tobacco advertising through the media," he noted.

According to the experts, Kenya's tobacco act is effective in some policy areas such as providing protection in some public places from the harms of secondhand smoke.

The Tobacco Control Act has been successful in creating smoke-free public transportation and curbing tobacco advertising but called for urgent action to further reduce secondhand smoke in bars and workplaces and also to increase knowledge of the harms of tobacco use.

The survey by the experts that was done in 2012 and released in Nairobi on Tuesday finds that about three-quarters (76 percent) of tobacco users are in favor of a ban on tobacco products within 10 years if the government provided assistance such as cessation clinics.

The experts called on the government to establish cessation services to support tobacco users who wish to quit.

They noted that tobacco users in Kenya are not well connected to sources of cessation assistance adding that 20 percent of tobacco users reported that they had visited a doctor or other health provider in the last 6 months.

They said that it is well established that advice to quit from a physician or health provider is a powerful motivator for quitting. Of those who were given advice to quit, 82 percent reported that the advice made them think about quitting tobacco.

The experts found that 70 percent of smokers are willing to pay more for tobacco products while 60 percent of smokers, support an increase on cigarette taxes.

"These findings are favorable for stronger tobacco control regulations to bring Kenya into compliance with the FCTC and its guidelines," Fong said.

The types of tobacco products used differ between men and women - 83 percent of male tobacco users mainly use smoked tobacco products (primarily cigarettes), while 66 percent of female tobacco users mainly use smokeless products.

As a whole 87 percent of Kenyan cigarette smokers smoke mainly factory-made cigarettes while 12 percent smoke hand-rolled cigarettes, and one percent smokes both forms of cigarettes.

The survey reveals that male smokers in Kenya have a higher use of menthol and sweet menthol cigarettes (about 2 in 10 smokers of a usual brand), compared to male smokers in most other ITC countries.

This is of concern for tobacco control efforts because flavorings such as menthol can produce cigarettes that deliver a smoother sensation on the respiratory system, and this smoother sensation has been shown to be strongly related to palatability and the belief that these cigarettes are less harmful, and leads to smoking initiation and youth smoking. Endit