Tobacco Co. should compensate tobacco victims, pay their medical bills

By Ifham Nizam

There is no point in government spending millions of rupees on smokers and boozers who fall ill due to their use of tobacco and alcohol. Instead, the British Tobacco Company should be asked to compensate families of the victims and also take responsibility to pay the hospital expenses of the smokers, said Jathika Hela Urumaya Parliamentarian Ven. Athuraliya Rathna Thera on Tuesday.

He was speaking at the launch of the book `Impact of tobacco vs. alternative crop cultivation on the socio-economic status of farmers’.

Ven. Rathna Thera, Chief Guest at the launch, said that the British firm was earning more than Rs. 50 billion and they should put a part of it to build a hospital in Sri Lanka for the welfare of their customers.

He said that climate change, particularly global warming, was a major issue causing numerous problems to mankind. However, none had spoken about the tobacco industry and its contribution to the global warming.

He said he strongly believed that the tobacco industry specially its plantations cause soil erosion and land degradation etc.

The western powers that often spoke of human rights, hardly mentioned the human suffering caused by the tobacco industry. "The tobacco industry, too, was a killer industry like the weapons industry," he added.

National Authority on Tobacco and Alcohol (NATA) Chairman Professor Carlo Fonseka said that using the newly launched book as a base, they expected to facilitate more research on the subject in the future to address the problem with wider participation.

The principal investigator of the study was Professor H. M. S. Priyantha, the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Languages and Head, Department of Economics, Sabaragamuwa University.

Agrarian Service Divisional officers S. M. Ranasinghe Bandara and M. A. D. Nissanaka Ariyasena were the other investigators. The research was carried out in the regions of Hanguranketha, Walapane, Uva-Paranagama and Buttala.

The book was published by the Bloomberg Project of the NATA, Sri Lanka.

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