Tobacco bills: Lessons from Uruguay’s ‘pauper president’

The world is celebrating President Jose Mujica of Uruguay who is leaving office after five years in power. He has turned to a political celebrity both on account of his novel approach to public office as well as the policy choices he made. While in the office, he lived in his tiny little house and rode an old Volkswagen Beetle car, though he had options of living in luxury. The frugality he embraced is a point of lessons for political officeholders in Nigeria and Africa where despite widespread poverty, the leaders live in opulence.

Beyond the frugality which he displayed, a number of his policy choices had been praised. He balanced his laws even in highly contentious policy areas such as abortion, marijuana and pot. He demonstrated that good intention is not as important as balancing all sides for policy effectiveness. While promulgating a law on pot, he said, “150,000 people smoke [marijuana] and I couldn’t leave them at the mercy of traffickers. It’s easier to control something if it’s legal and that’s why we’ve done this.”

The mindset behind this position shows a wholesome respect for the rights of others as well as the futility of over-regulating a product with demand. The point for Nigeria is not about legalizing pot but the need to look beyond the moral or religious prism and consider the economics as well as minority rights when making regulations, most especially for consumable with inelastic demand. As a matter of fact, this policy approach to a contentious issue could be emulated in Nigeria by ensuring that regulations are balanced and all possible consequences are examined. This argument resonates on the various policy proposals on tobacco in Nigeria. Attempts are now being made to further restrict legal consumption of tobacco in Nigeria and indirectly criminalizing its consumption. Should these attempts be successful, alcohol, sugar or beverages may be next.

In the last few years, there have been four bills on tobacco which are at various stages of passage at the National Assembly. In the same vein, there are hordes of campaigns to restrict sales and consumptions. Part of the trademarks is the deliberate exaggeration of bogus statistics to apparently clamp down on the industry thereby restricting the necessary educational and information activities by the industries aiming to promote healthier options for smokers.  Unlike Mujica’s well-reasoned position, Nigeria’s tobacco regulations are seemingly based on a belief that those who smoke are irrational and should be punished. Smokers believe these laws are being enacted to infringe their guaranteed constitutional rights and freedom.  A balanced regulation will respect the rights of smokers and non-smokers. On the other hand, unbalanced regulations will encourage the illegal market at the expense of legal manufacturers. To re-phrase Mujica’s assertion, it is like being at the mercy of smugglers.

Without doubt, the sector is not in short of regulations. Already there are state laws banning public smoking in designated places, APCON regulation which prohibits billboards and several others by the Standard Organisation of Nigeria. The implications of having a tobacco market dominated by smugglers are beyond loss of taxes and unemployment due to legal business closing shops, bigger health-related issues would ensue when people consume low quality and un-standardized products.

This comes out clearly in Kenya where alcohol sales are regulated to late evening. Towards the end of 2014 alone, about 200 people were reported to have died from adulterated products and illicit breweries. The lesson is that punitive regulations do not lower consumption. For instance, in Ireland, tobacco regulation is as punitive but smoking prevalence is not coming down as anticipated and a large chunk of the market has gone underground.

Undoubtedly, the myriad of bills and laws are aimed at achieving good intentions. But in framing public policy, good intentions are not just enough. Often good intention that is not well-balanced leads to outcomes that are counterproductive. On the industry side, multiplicity of regulations will distort the market. One negative effect of multiplicity of regulations comes from the multiplicity of regulators and layers of enforcers and legal responsibilities for the manufacturers. Apart from the fact that this raises enforcement and compliance costs both for government and on the part of the industry, it will create unnecessary complexities for the public in terms of monitoring and compliance. Ironically, this freezes resources that are urgently needed in other sectors such as fixing the derelict infrastructure including that of the health sector. What these regulations would ultimately do is to give discretionary powers to enforce and such discretionary power would fuel opportunity for corruption and bribery, two monsters that have retarded Nigeria’s rise to prosperity. 

There is a need to look critically at how to draft effective tobacco control laws. This will definitely involve understanding how draconian policies affect human behaviour. There are undeniably health implications related to any product consumed and tobacco is no exception. The good news is that innovation within the industry is changing the face of the market. Since its discovery, e-cigarette is becoming a replacement for the traditional cigarette. Life is simply about choices and preferences. Consumers must be armed to make informed choices and laws must be drafted to respect these choices. The legislators must, therefore, uphold and respect the right of smokers to make informed decisions same as that given to non-smokers – these laws must not be discriminatory in nature.

Tobacco, like alcohol, gaming and similar products, is governed by hard and irrefutable economics that over-regulation or prohibition of mutually-beneficial exchanges will eventually fail. One hopes that the legislators and policymakers will not travel that way. We must not travel this road.

Olusegun Sotola