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SAMOA BILL TO PROHIBIT SALE OF TOBACCO TO YOUTH  

Children may soon be prohibited from buying cigarettes from local shops in Samoa.

This depends on the acceptance of the Tobacco Control Bill 2008 recently discussed in Parliament.

Ever since cigarettes were introduced and sold in Samoa, children as young as five have been able to buy packets or lose cigarettes from local shops, usually for their parents.

On that note, the Minister of Health, Hon. Gatoloaifaana Amataga Gidlow last week stood on sensitive grounds in Parliament.

The Minister submitted the Tobacco Control Bill 2008 to Parliament for its second reading

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• Samoa government to ban smoking in public places under new legislation 

The Ministry of Health in Samoa has tabled in parliament proposed legislation aimed at banning smoking in several public areas such as public transport, and restaurants.

The legislation also plans to stop retail shops in the country from selling tobacco to people under 21 years of age.

The legislation was tabled by the Minister of Health, Gatoloaifa'ana Amataga Gidlow, and went through in the second reading with nearly all MPs in both sides of the house supporting it.

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Giving up? If I can do it so can you, says Health Minister 

Smokers who say they can't give up are wrong, Minister of Health Mulitalo Seali'imalietoa Siafausa Vui said yesterday. You can give up, he stressed. It's a matter of using willpower, Mulitalo said at the opening of the World No Tobacco Day at the Tooa Salamasina Hall. Mulitalo said he used to smoke up to five packets a day. "It kept me awake at nights," he said. That was when he was working as a fundraiser for non-government organisations. When he was appointed Minister of Health in 2001, he quit. Mulitalo said that was out of respect for his position and the Prime Minister who had appointed him minister.

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Relief for smokers, ship due 

Good news for all smokers. Rothmans and Consulate cigarettes should be back on shelves at your local stores, maybe from as early as this afternoon. A ship was due last night with British American Tobacco Company's supply, the company's finance manager at Vaitele, Fa'afouina Su'a, said. He said British American is amongst companies whose supplies have been hit because of shipping disruptions caused by recent cyclones and bad weather.

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No butts in Samoan village's smoking ban 

A tiny Samoan village has declared itself smokefree, fining anyone who breaches the ban and threatening to banish repeat offenders.

The idea came from the women of Fagamalo, on the island of Savaii, and has been put in place by village chiefs.

Even cigarette-toting tourists are not exempt. If they light up within the village environs, they will be asked politely to stop or to leave.

Inveterate village smokers who think they can get away with a sneaky puff or two outside the village boundaries have to think twice.

They risk the village's standard 20 Samoan tala ($15) fine if they are spotted. . .

Village chiefs have so far fined six smokers, one of them twice.

And they are threatening to impose heavier fines if smokers do not see the error of their ways.

The ban was the brainchild of Finoa Faamoe, who followed up on television advertisements and Health Department warnings about smoking being bad for health. . .

Village chief Faamoetauloa Etene said that after agreeing to declare their territory smokefree and impose fines on violators, all village elders, himself included, stopped smoking.

"Other villages are now starting to follow us."

Since smoking had been banned, he said, villagers had noticed more money available for child education.

Fagamalo minister the Rev Sileli Tauaifaiga said 40 per cent of village residents used to smoke. The number had since dropped by three-quarters.

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NZ blamed for part in deaths 

Wellington: New Zealand has contributed to the deaths of hundreds of Samoans by paying for the construction of a cigarette factory in the Pacific nation in the late 1970s, says a Wellington researcher.

Prime Minister Helen Clark last month apologised for New Zealand's colonial management of Samoa after it allowed influenza to kill thousands in 1918 and for gunning down nine unarmed pro-independence protesters in 1929.

But Wellington School of Medicine researcher George Thomson said New Zealand had to face the consequences of its involvement in the development of Samoa's tobacco industry.

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