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It is a well known fact that most smokers pick up this dreadful habit that later leads to addiction, in their teenage years and I too was no exception having first attempted to smoke at the ‘ripe old age’ of 14 in a misinformed and misguided attempt to impress girls. I was in form one and it would take me another 27 years to finally manage to quit.

In Kenya today would be a good day for any of the numerous teenagers who will attempt to light up their first ‘cancer stick’ as we used to call them for as young people the threat of distant cancer as opposed to the instant thrill of being cool, the living for here and now mentality was not even worth contemplating.

For these youth starting today, male and female the British American Tobacco Company (BAT Kenya) are offering 20 Million shillings worth of prizes, with the grand prize of one million shillings for a winner drawn from each of the six regions. These are Nairobi, Eastern, Coast, Mountain, Lake and the Rift.

The competition features the BAT flagship brands of Sportsman and Sportsman Lights names chosen to give an image of good health and vitality and yet it is almost blasphemous to talk about cigarettes and good health and vitality in the same breath. The very idea of misleading the public by tagging some brands "lights" or "low tar7quot; is part of these companies cunning strategy to package ill health and death as healthy "lifestyle choices."

Recently as health minister Charity Ngilu sought to put in place a smoking restrictions in public places initiative, the BAT and Mastermind Tobacco went to court against what they felt were a gross violation of their ‘rights’. These ruthless multinationals with only one agenda profit and then more profit at any cost on their minds said they were very reasonable people who had long stopped advertising as one of their self-regulation initiatives.

With the case still in court they now come out with this competition "Vuna Chappa" with its blessings from the Betting, Control and Licensing Board. To enter one merely has to fill a form and send it to a post box or drop it into a box at your local store or kiosk. So where is the catch? The form is on the inside of the packet of cigarettes so you have to purchase the packet first.

The majority of Kenyans we are often told by numerous reports quoted in the media are living below a US dollar a day so less than 73 shillings. Research carried out worldwide has also shown that the most smokers are usually the less educated and poorer members of society. In other words those who can least afford to smoke constitute the largest number of smokers.

Dangling one million shillings in front of this poor uneducated fellow by trumpeting through the media that all he has to do to get it is to keep smoking or smoke more than he usually does (and thus increase his chances of winning by sending in more entries) is to my mind cruel and akin to human rights abuse.

Here you have a situation where you sell a product which not only contains nicotine a drug capable of causing addiction but has thousands of other poisons of which at least 40 are carcinogenic or cancer causing. Yet there is no education at all on the dangers of smoking so that people are then able to make an informed choice.

On the contrary BAT targets young people in its marketing including the warning that smoking is for adults only. To the youth aspiring to look more mature than their years this then becomes the greatest lure, for they are engaging in an activity which is solely the preserve of adults. Yet is there a distinction? Is there a safe age for smoking? An age at which you will no get addicted to the nicotine and you will be immune to the devastating effects of another 4,000 chemicals mainly poisons. No I have not made a mistake with the zeroes. It is the figure four followed by three zeroes!

Who can warn Kenyans on the grave dangers facing them when the mainstream media falls over itself drooling for this BAT and EABL revenue? The BCLB is the broker for the transaction and this body seems to have no clue as to the enormity of licensing such competitions.

This last month they seem to have fallen over in licensing events which are all connected to mood altering drugs. The East African Breweries were the first to kick off this flexing of muscles when they launched the Guinness 17:59 competition where once again the more Guinness you drink, the more chances you have of winning. This was closely followed by 7quot;Tusker Project Fame" where the youth 18 to 30 years old are invited to audition to become famous as musicians with prizes including a Mercedes Benz and a recording contract.

Yet this was not all for shortly there after the Redds Fashion Awards were announced. The brewers seem to have gone mad every for every other page you turn in the mainstream media and there jumping out at you is a full page colour advert for one or other of these competitions.

We cannot have a situation where all activities that are attractive to the youth are being sponsored by the East African Breweries. For their younger siblings are growing up, nay Kenyans are growing up with East African Breweries being our surrogate parents. Our children are growing with an over exposure to East African Breweries which even tries to sell as patriotism through its slogan "Kenya My Country, Tusker My Beer" while not revealing that it is a foreign owned company.

East African Breweries recently claimed to have stopped advertising on electronic media to after 8.30 pm. On television this might be true. But have you listened to any of the myriad FM stations on the programmes geared for the youth? Presenters gleefully talk about their hangovers and how they cannot wait to finish their shift so as rush off and guzzle some beer or other alcoholic beverage to battle the hangover.

They do this even as they offer bottles of whisky or vodka or crates of beer if one can answer some simple question. Between their banter and the gifts offered the talk is all geared at promoting an alcohol worshipping culture where how totally sloshed or drunk one was last night and the silly things they did as a result are laughed off and made to sound normal and acceptable.

These presenters, both male and female laugh off these transgressions indeed they seek to justify them and all over the country young people avidly lap up these tales and cannot wait to try out alcohol for the first time. Here at last they have found role models who are wild and do fun things. It cannot be all bad because then they would not talk about it on the radio like that would they?

Then they read the newspapers and ‘celebrity writers’ are there talking about how they drunk and got completely blotto with full colour photos of ‘celebs’ in all manner of drunken lewd poses holding bottles of beer or other forms of alcohol and all you need to complete the picture are the local music videos with backdrops of bars or alcohol consumption. So East African Breweries do not need to advertise before 8.30 pm on television for the music video’s shown from as early as 11.00 am do a much better job and for those who are not near a TV set the radios take up the slack.

Thus the media are held by the short and curly' and nobody it seems wants to help the youth as they are left to the mercy of the multinationals. But media owners should remember one thing their children and loved ones are also consuming these drugs. The day of reckoning will eventually come and it will be interesting to see if BAT or East African Breweries will help them foot the bill.

David Ogot Snr. is the Founder and Programmes Director of the goinghomedotcom Trust a media NGO specializing in drug abuse issues. A recovering alcoholic, he can be reached at goinghomedotcom@yahoo.com or website: www.goinghomekenya.org

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