30 May 2019
AUNG PHAY KYI SOE
The Ministry of Health and Sports is working on a draft amendment to the Control of Smoking and Consumption of Tobacco Product Law as part of the government’s anti-tobacco effort, a senior official said.
Daw Mya Lay Nwe, manager of the National Tobacco Control Programme and deputy director of the Public Health Department, said the draft law is expected be ready this year or early next year.
“We are looking at tobacco control laws in neighbouring countries and comparing them with ours,” she said.
With the help of international experts, Myanmar lawyers and tobacco control experts, the ministry wants to make the national law more in line with the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
The law lists the offences and penalties for violators.
“We discussed the chapters that need to be amended with health authorities at a workshop,” said U Thein Swe, vice president of the non-governmental People’s Health Foundation. “We put forward our advice to the government.”
The foundation submitted amendments to the list of offences and penalties for violators of the law as well as a definition of terms, U Thein Swe said.
The current law was enacted in May 2006, replacing a 1959 law.
