By: Nyima Sillah
Many smokers within the Greater Banjul Area have angrily reacted to government new law that banned public smoking describing the law as ‘bias and unfair’.
In a Voice interview, Babu Manneh, said: “The police cannot just enforce law on tobacco smokers without giving any specific place for us to smoke because smoking is one of the things that cannot be easily eradicated in this country without the concern of the citizens.”
According to him, before the police enforce laws on smokers that they should first put a ban on the importation and exportation of Tobaccos in the country. In that case, it will be easy for smokers not to smoke.
“They cannot tell people to stop smoking while they don’t stop the people that import it in the country before putting enforcements just like that,” he said.
Ebrima Faal, also a smoker said: “people said Tobacco causes TB but I deny that because after so many years of smoking I ever experience any form of health problem regarding my health more or less diagnose TB.”
“What I think government should do, is to do more sensitization on the issues of Tobacco that will create awareness around the country rather enforcing laws because if we are to rate the percentage of the smokers in the country I bet it will not be less than 75% because everyone is a smoker in one way or the other,” he added.
But Abdou Jallow, however said the police should not apply the law on shopkeepers saying “sometimes people can be under age but they can be sent to their uncles or fathers in that case the law cannot blame us for selling Tobacco to those people because it is not our fault”, He added.
H explained: “I sell different types of Tobacco and I sell it to different people starting from officers to students and many other people. In my opinion, the government should work hard and ban Tobacco imports from the borders because business is business and once it does not stop from the top, we will stop selling it.”