By: Sandally Sawo
Counterfeited Bond Street Cigarette is being sold across the Greater Banjul Area (GBA) months after health authorities warned of the sale of another brand of fake cigarette.
An official of the Non-communicable Disease Control unit of the Ministry of Health in a quarterly media briefing earlier this year spoke about the creeping into the country of a fake cigarette and warned the smoking public to beware.
Meanwhile, a few months after this warning was issued, a falsified Bond Street cigarette is increasingly gaining a foothold in the Gambia’s tobacco market.
Despite registering some successes in banning the advertisement of tobacco products and ensuring that graphic health warnings are displayed on cigarette boxes, health, and law enforcement authorities are still struggling to end single-stick buying and selling of cigarettes.
The Tobacco Control Act prohibits the display of tobacco products, advertisements, and single-stick transactions. It also prohibits the sale of cigarettes to and by minors.
The health ministry has been taking its tobacco fight to many fronts, using both communications offensive and stick. The ministry’s NCD unit continued its public awareness-raising while law enforcement officers were being deployed to monitor compliance with the Tobacco Act.
However, limited financial and human resources as well as a lack of greater public awareness about the Act have been posing challenges to the ministry.