Suggestions made to ban smoking in Fiji

Suggestions have been made that smoking should be completely banned in the country.

The Fiji College of General Practitioners in their recent annual conference had made this suggestion that Fiji should be declared “smoke free”.

President Dr Ram Raju said this was well supported in the conference by various stakeholders as the high rates of heart attacks and deaths related to other cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension and stroke is all related to smoking.
 
Dr Raju said therefore smoking has to be banned if the health sector is serious enough to reverse this trend.

He added that declaring Fiji Smoke Free will be a win-win situation as all rich and fertile land used for tobacco farming should be converted to planting vegetables and fruits.

Tobacco factories will also be converted to vegetable and fruit processing to create more jobs.

He further added that short term losses from tobacco taxes and revenue will soon be outweighed by long term benefits and a smoke free atmosphere will create a much healthy and polluted free atmosphere in which tourism will also be given a boost.


Story by: Sofaia Koroitanoa