OPINION: Closing the door on smoking

THE PROMOTERS of smoking reinvent their strategies and generate new products, such as electronic cigarettes or use more striking packets to attract young people. For these issues and other voids, there is pending Panamanian health legislation.

The Ministry of Health and the Panamanian Coalition gainst Cigarette smoking have pushed bill 136, to close the door to the mechanisms of an activity that causes 18 different pathologies, pollutes the environment and poisons neighbourly coexistence. With the new legislation users of these products will pay for the damages caused by their consumption, and in the future, more Panamanians will be prevented from becoming smokers and addicted to tobacco and their derivatives. Panama has been one of the most successful countries in the eradication of tobacco (with only 6.4%), but after almost a decade since the last legislation on this matter, it is imperative to update it. We have to save more lives as soon as possible … La Prensa, Oct.28