TUESDAY, March 28, 2023: A man lights a cigarette as he enters a plaza on Red Hills Road, St Andrew. He takes a drag on the tobacco product, puffing the smoke into the air as he steps inside a hardware store.

Asked if he was aware that there is a ban on public smoking, he replied, “I know, but yuh know when you do things that you know you’re not supposed to do?”

Standing outside a bar in the same plaza another man is enjoying his favourite smoke.

The bartender tells the Jamaica Observer that while she sells cigarettes, she will ask customers to step outside to smoke. Some will comply while others are more resistant and will retort: “How yuh fi sell cigarettes and I can’t smoke in here?”

She admits that she doesn’t argue with them when they get defiant. And there are instances, she says, when her request will lead to altercations with customers, forcing her boss to intervene and calm passions.

Those experiences are common across the country, 10 years after the Government, at the insistence of then Health Minister Dr Fenton Ferguson, implemented a ban on smoking in public places.

But a Sunday Observer probe has found that the ban is not being enforced, as State entities aligned to tobacco control are passing the buck.

The police are expected to be in charge of enforcement, but according to a reliable source within the constabulary, they have not been provided with the tools to do so.

The Ministry of Health, the source said, is supposed to produce tickets which the police would issue to people in breach of the law. “The only thing the police may have to do is lock them up and place them before the court, and that is not an arrestable offence. It’s an offence that must be ticketed and they go before the court. So they need to put those things in place, yet they are trying now to shift it to the police. That is not the police’s responsibility,” the cop told the Sunday Observer.

He said that when law is instituted, the attendant documentation is to be provided to enforce the legislation, yet “there is no ticket available; nobody has printed any ticket”.

“Our responsibility is, when you give us the instrument, we enforce it. The instrument is not there to enforce the law,” the cop said, noting that it is a similar case with minor offences under the marijuana and anti-litter laws wherein tickets were to have been provided in order to enforce them, but none have been produced.

“We are ready to enforce this but they need to give us the instrument, which is the ticket,” the cop insisted.

When the Sunday Observer contacted the Ministry of Health and Wellness, the newspaper was told by an official that it is the National Council on Drug Abuse (NCDA) that has the lead responsibility for dealing with tobacco control in Jamaica. The paper was also told that it is the police who are to enforce the ban, and that the health ministry is not responsible for providing tickets to the police.

However, NCDA Executive Director Michael Tucker, when contacted, told the Sunday Observer that enforcement of all the laws, including the ban on smoking in public places, no sale of alcohol to underage individuals, is the responsibility of the police;

“If the security forces said they’ll need tickets, it would then be treated just like how you’d have a traffic fine or a traffic infringement where you get a ticket. If you think about it, [with] the amendment to the Dangerous Drugs Act where ganja or cannabis is now decriminalised, there was a proposal to get a ticketing system, where anybody caught using less than two ounces in a public space would get a ticket, but not get incarcerated. So if there are tickets to be issued then it would have to be the security forces who would be responsible for issuing those tickets. It would be the justice ministry, I think, between them and the Ministry of National Security, that would determine the size or fine for each ticket,” he said.

Tucker also noted that the Heart Foundation is the entity in charge of tobacco control efforts in the country.

The foundation houses the Jamaica Coalition for Tobacco Control (JCTC), an advocacy group which envisions a tobacco-free Jamaica. Formed in 2002, the JCTC has been working closely with Government, non-government and other allied health organisations to encourage abstinence, minimise tobacco use, and work toward de-normalising the use of all tobacco and nicotine products in Jamaica.

Through its projects, JCTC has supported the Ministry of Health and Wellness in the successful promulgation of the Public Health (Tobacco Control) Regulations 2013.

The coalition has a project dubbed Advocacy and Media Support for Sustainable Implementation of Comprehensive Tobacco Control Policy in Jamaica, which seeks to facilitate the successful implementation of comprehensive tobacco control policy.

The project is mandated to provide evidence-based information on tobacco control policies and build support, through sensitisation meetings to key stakeholders from tobacco control and beyond tobacco control, about the health risks of tobacco. It also highlights the benefits of implementing and enforcing comprehensive tobacco control policies, including strict compliance with Article 5.3, Article 13 and other key articles of the World Health Organization’s treaty.

Shanique Burton, the JCTC’s programme officer, tobacco control, told the Sunday Observer that the project activities are now focusing on getting support for the new legislation.

She noted, however, that since the Public Health (Tobacco Control) Regulations, 2013 was implemented, “I can say that anecdotally, we have seen where there is a reduction of smoking in public places, especially at the workplace, and places like in the health centres and public transport.”

However, she said that there are no official statistics on adherence to the enforcement measures to back up this claim.

“In terms of statistics, this project doesn’t really hold stats… Some of the official statistics that we have on the adherence is mainly focused on the prevalence of smoking. So we know stats for the number of students under 15 who smoke, and some adults as well, but we don’t have any official stats in terms of compliance to the legislation,” she said.

According to a document provided by the coalition on the project, the tobacco control policy provides the legal framework within which the entity can hold the Government accountable under JCTC obligations.

“Comprehensive tobacco control policy in Jamaica will also place more emphasis on the importance of measures to encourage persons to stop smoking or never start. The JCTC will continue to advocate for sustainable funding to support ongoing tobacco control activities, including public awareness, enforcement activities, monitoring of the tobacco industry,” the document read.

According to the Public Health (Tobacco Control) Regulations, 2013, revised in 2014, smoking or using electronic nicotine delivery systems such as e-cigarettes are prohibited in enclosed public places, enclosed workplaces and public conveyances. This is the primary piece of legislation regulating tobacco control in Jamaica.

Smoking is also forbidden in any of the following places, even if they are not enclosed: government-occupied buildings; health facilities, including pharmacies; sports, athletic or other similar facilities for the use of the public; educational institutions; bus stops and departure and arrival waiting areas at a port or station for any form of transportation; areas specifically for use by children; staff residences and guest houses; beaches; outdoor dining and service areas; parks; national heritage sites; swimming pools designated as Class A and Class B under the Public Health Swimming Pools Regulations, 2000. The exceptions are pools for private use or where a pool is exclusively accessible for an independent or private villa or suite; outdoor markets; other outdoor events or activities, being used for gathering by individuals; and outdoor smoking areas.

But all that is of little concern to many Jamaicans.

At an informal car park in Half-Way-Tree, three men and a woman were seen on March 28 smoking ganja spliffs openly in the vicinity of bars and wholesale shops.

Inside a pub in the Corporate Area, a bartender said that while she is aware of the ban on smoking in public, cigarette-smoking customers bring good business to her bar.

“The bar sells cigarettes. You can’t really prevent customers from smoking, unless you stop selling cigarettes, and you’re going to lose customers. Some people won’t drink if they can’t smoke; and we don’t want to lose customers,” she said.

She said that initially, customers were asked to put out their cigarettes upon entry to the bar or to take smoking outside, but this is not done anymore.

The World Health Organization estimates that tobacco kills more than eight million people each year. More than seven million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use while approximately 1.2 million are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke.