The Executive Director of policy think tank IMANI Ghana says a new bill to regulate tobacco use is too prohibitive. Franklin Cudjoe says measures prescribed in the bill amount to an abuse of the rights of smokers. The Public Health Bill currently before parliament bans smoking in public and even in homes. It also has strict guidelines on labeling and Mr. Cudjoe believes this is unfair because Ghana has a small smoking population and an expensive tax regime on tobacco. He told Joy News the Bill “bans people from smoking in open air spaces and in their homes and surroundings where other people’s exposure to secondhand smoke may be negligible,” which believes “is unfair and is an encroachment on people’s rights.” “You don’t want to say that tobacco smoking is illegal. If that is what you want to say, find a better way of saying it,” he added. Mr Cudjoe accused campaigners for the legislation of hypocrisy, saying they received $150,000 from the Bloomberg Initiative “and that the Bloomberg Initiative gives money to groups to just clamp down on businesses.” One of the men leading the campaign for the passage of the new Public Health Bill, Prof. Agyemang Badu Akosa said he was surprised by Mr. Cudjoe’s position. He said the essence of the legislation was two-pronged – to encourage non-smokers to stay away for good and to motivate those who are already smoking to give up the habit. Responding to Mr Cudjoe, he said; “You have a baby and you believe that your human right allows you to smoke in your room [but] that impacts on the health of the baby and therefore by extension the… the health system of this country; you think that your human right should override the law (which) is trying to tell you that the human rights of that child or members of your family is equally valid.” Prof. Akosa believes the law is long overdue. Source: Joy News/Ghana