Sri Lanka: Over 100 towns Boycotted Cigarette Sales

The Health Ministry of Sri Lanka said that over 100 towns across the country have boycotted the sales of combustible cigarettes with the aim of making the country tobacco-free.

Diane Caruana

August 27, 2018

Sri Lanka’s Public Health Inspectors Union launched several educational programmes across the country, with the aim of informing locals about the negative effects of smoking, and as a result, shop owners and businessmen in many towns have decided to stop selling cigarettes.

Data from around the world has indicated that consumers’ response to unavailable or expensive products tends to be purchasing them on the black market.

Currently, 107 towns within different districts have joined this initiative, and Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne, said that whilst pleased with these numbers, the ministry hopes that the figures increase to 200 by 2019.

In recent years, the Sri Lankan government has taken several steps with the aim of decreasing smoking rates across the country, such as increasing the tax on tobacco up to 90%, increasing the size of health warnings on cigarette packs, and banning smoking in certain public spaces.

The risk in such a motion

However, many public health experts may argue that adopting such a forbidding stance may prove counterproductive. Sadly, data from around the world has indicated that consumers’ response to unavailable or expensive products tends to be purchasing them on the black market, where they are unregulated and possibly unsafe.

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