ZIMBABWE can no longer afford to tiptoe around the dangers of tobacco smoke.
For too long, weak laws and weaker enforcement have left citizens exposed to poison in public spaces.
Shamva South legislator Joseph Mapiki’s proposal to amend the Public Health (Control of Tobacco) Regulations, Statutory Instrument (SI) 264 of 2002, must not gather dust — it is a matter of life and death.
If passed, the law will finally extend to high-traffic public areas where second-hand smoke is rife.
This is long overdue.
Everyday, Zimbabweans inhale toxic clouds of smoke at bus stops, markets and crowded city streets — they are forced to inhale poison from reckless smokers who take advantage of weak laws and absent enforcement.
For two decades, authorities have sat on their hands while the public is subjected to toxic fumes.
The health evidence is overwhelming: second-hand smoke kills, causing cancers, heart disease and chronic lung illnesses.
- Teachers, other civil servants face off
- Veld fire management strategies for 2022
- Magistrate in court for abuse of power
- Vungu Dam water treatment and irrigation project takes off
Keep Reading
The vulnerable — children, expectant mothers, the elderly, those who are least able to defend themselves — pay the highest price.
They are forced to breathe in poison because government has failed to act.
Passive smoking is not a nuisance; it kills.
Science has long confirmed that it causes various illnesses.
Other nations, from Japan to South Africa, have moved boldly.
Japan, for example, has banned smoking on most streets and in indoor spaces, providing enclosed booths for smokers and strictly enforcing penalties for violations.
It provides designated smoking booths and strictly enforce bans, with real penalties for violators.
Zimbabwe, by contrast, has laws that are toothless, monitoring that is absent and leadership that seems unwilling to confront the tobacco menace head-on.
We have allowed ourselves to sit on paper while citizens choke on second-hand smoke.
The truth is simple: protecting people from toxic smoke is not a privilege, it is a right.
Yet government’s failure to promulgate, monitor and enforce existing regulations shows a shocking disregard for public health.
A law without enforcement is no law at all.
Parliament must stop pretending.
The ban must be extended to all high-traffic areas and enforcement must be uncompromising.
Smokers have a choice; non-smokers do not.
The right to breathe clean air should not be sacrificed at the altar of weak leadership and corporate influence.
Zimbabweans are tired of empty statutes that protect no one.
Public smoking laws must be tightened, monitored and enforced with urgency.
Anything less is State-sanctioned negligence — and it is killing us.
Zimbabweans deserve the right to breathe clean air.
That Zimbabwe has allowed this preventable hazard to persist is nothing short of negligence.
This is not a matter of “smokers’ rights”.
It is about the right of every Zimbabwean to walk the streets, queue for transport or buy food at a market without being forced to inhale carcinogenic smoke.
Government cannot continue to treat this as a minor nuisance.
It is a public health crisis.
Parliament must urgently tighten the law and government must enforce it ruthlessly.
Anything less is a betrayal of the people’s right to life and health.
Clean air is not a privilege. It is a basic right.
If leaders cannot defend our lungs, they have no right to speak of protecting our lives.
