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All Kenyan non-smokers should obey the age old adage of "if you can't beat them - join them" and take up smoking cigarettes since they seem to be completely ignorant of what this drug is and seem to consider it a harmless albiet smelly, mild nuisance and one which they can easily put up with.

After all, there are bigger problems to worry about than somebody who insists on wasting his money on little mostly white sticks with fire on one end and smoke out the other. After all, that's his problem not mine.

And it is precisely that attitude which proves how ignorant¹ Kenyans are about this seemingly innocuos little stick, which in other countries is raising huge clouds of dust not to mention countless hackles. But not so to seemingly unflappable Kenyans - the kind of calm which symbolises great bravery or extreme bliss bred of massive lack of warning to impending catastrophe.

How else would you explain a young Kenyan musician whom we would expect younger children to look up to as a role model to be singing about smoking a cigarette (actually she even sings about smoking cannabis sativa bhang). This in itself might not be too starnge were it not for the fact that the programme where this song was featured is for the younger segment of our popualtion.

But nobody raises a finger or questions. Conclusion: Ignorance! No? Then how else do we have government ministers in bed with the tobacco barons and nobody raises an eyebrow.

Though Kenyans might be ignorant, the ministers and the media are not. For this is how big tobacco works the world over. They buy the powerful, they corrupt governments, they buy powerful ministers, they buy journalists who then do their dirty work for them.

These then are the people who will sing the tobacco support song, and the tobacco companies will sit back quietly not drawing any attention to themselves. But surely the preseident himself, a renowned economist, can see that economics of tobacco are all false. Surely, he can see that the health of the nation is at stake?

But what if he does not know? Well, there is one more voice. I will use this column to help him hear for this is one voice we cannot afford to ignore. Anyway, I would have had to let his voice be heard even if I didn't want to for though I obtained a copy of this letter, it is adressed to you Mr. President.

It starts off: "Your Excellency Mr. President, this is an open letter to you, Sir as well as future generations of this country who would look bak on this era the particular issue of tobacco versus the health of the people of this country."

"For the purposes of this commmunication we shall use the World Health organsiation (WHO)'s definition of health with an amendment that "health is a state of complete physical, mental, social, economic and spiritual well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."

On it continues "the recent 'Investment Conference' which brought together local Kenyan and international stakeholders and delegates was passed as a success. That it was proposed by British American Tobacco (BAT) and hosted by the Government of the Republic of Kenya through its ministries of trade and industry, and planning jointly, is a sad commnentary and narrative of the historical trend that has kept Kenya off course with reagrd to the present and future health of its people, the most important resource of this great country, whatever other health-seeking and health providing efforts of the government. Prevention will always be better than cure."

The writer goes on to note that tobacco as a crop grows on soil, is also seen as a cash crop to the farmers and their families, a consumable and trade product, and source of revenue to the government.

However, he continues, is that " the bottom line prompting this desperate communication is the fact that each and every one of those aspects of tobacco impacts lethally on the health and wealth of the people young and old."

The author goes on to give some horrifying facts which he very much wants to bring "to your Excellency's attention" namely that even though tobacco is the most outstanding health risk today, it also an entirely preventable risk. Still every¹ eight-to-nine seconds somebody dies of tobacco-related illness such that even the WHO has given a timely warning of which many countries have taken heed, Kenya has not.

Tough legislation elsewhere is forcing tobacco countries to relocate to the Third World where there are no laws and they are able to block any relevant legislation. Thus they are finding Kenya with no WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO-FCTC) very attractive. The icing on the cake is that not even the tobacco Bill 2003 has been tabled in parliament for debate and enactment.

To add insult to injury "for every Kenyan shilling recieved from the tobacco industry the country spends three shillings to treat tobacco-related illnesses and diseases. This makes a mockery of the new national social insurance health scheme.

But even scarier is that the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) findings in Kenya from 50 rural and urban schools revealed that 400,000 pupils aged between 13 and 15 years already smoked. Of this number 160,000 were girls!

Yet there are over 4,000 chemicals in tobacco, all bad for human health. Four hundred are toxic and 40 are known causes of cancer. There is no consumable substance, drug or food which is anywhere near these figures.

By the year 2020-2030, the WHO estimates that tobacco-related diseases will kill more people around the world than malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS na droad traffic accidents put together, if nothing is done now.

The letter faults us correctly by stating that "it is a shame that Kenya is the only country in this Eastern Africa region which has niether signed the WHO-FCTC or enacted its own 'Tobacco Control Bill 2003' which even tiny nations like Burundi and Seychelles have done! Worse still Kenya has submitted itself as the launching pad for "big tobacco' to encroach onto ever larger areas in Eastern Africa with the net result that Kenya will be a willing partner in weakening the tobacco control Bills of its own neighbours.

Sadly, we are trailing our immediate neighbours Uganda and Tanzania in the anti-tobacco war not unlike the way we did with the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Not content, we rub salt in the wound when the tobacco industry in 2003 practically for the first time in this country's long history persuaded the government to reduce taxes on tobacco in the national budget.

Again when the National Tobacco-Free Initiative Committee (NTFIC) showed that land on which tobacco is cultivated was small enough to be reclaimed by crop substitution and due assistance to the poor farmers, the tobacco farmers persuaded this same ruling National rainbow Coalition (Narc) Government to grant them the strategic but notorious permission to increase tobacco acreage in several districts including Siaya, Makueni and Transmara though until then tobacco occupied only 0.19 percent of Kenya's agricultural land under cultivation.

But it gets worse. When the NTFIC showed that given tobacco trade and consumption in Kenya, it was impossible for the tobacco industry to pay Shs 6-7 billion to the government in taxes, they later toned down the figure to 3-4 billion, adding up to less than 0.09 percent of all Kenyan government tax revenue.

Unfortunately, the media helped to create the impression that without excise tax revenue from tobacco, the economy would collapse!

Moving back to health Mr President, the letter continues with some spine chilling figures. During the first-half of the 20th Century, there were no cases of lung cancer seen in indigenous Kenyans. By the 1960s and 70s and 80s, a number of cases were reported from Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH). By 1988, it was found that 67 percent of those with lung cancer were direct or first-hand smokers. The remaining 33 percent were passive or second-hand smokers.

Worse still up to the 1950s, hypertension was not a problem in black Kenyans. Following the introduction of cigarettes in the early 1900s and a lapse of the usual incubation period over decades, hypertension became a big health problem neccesiating the setting up of¹ a special hypertension clinic at the KNH.

That clinic today remains overbooked, despite other hospitals looking after ever increasing numbers of these patients all over the country. Strokes and heart attacks are no longer a curiosity in this country.

"The committement of Your Excellency's Governemnt on extensive reforms in the health sector are ver commendable. However, no amount of health sector reform will be effective, leave alone complete without effective control of tobacco."

"We want to appeal to Your Exellency to take a hard look at the dangerous reality of tobacco and do what is good for your people (born and unborn), the long suffering Kenyans. The tobacco industry perpetuation of jungle law and political patronage whereas Kenyans deserve protection from them and their kind! I speak for all of us Kenyans and that is why I say "we"

"As we mark this year's World No-Tobacco day, we look foward to renewed commitment with news that Kenya will have signed the WHO-FCTC, and that the Tobacco Control Bill 2003 will have reached parliament for debate and enactment."

"I remain Sir, Yours Most respectfully, Prof Peter A. Odhiambo, Chairman National Tobacco-Free Initiative Committee."

There now Mr President you have it. This then is the gist of the very long letter (full text of the letter is available on www.goinghomedotcom.org in the Digital Library under the link 'National Tobacco-Free Initiative Committee') in whichProf Odhiambo correctly adresses you among other titles also as 'Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Kenya. Our protector!

Remember then that we look to you as I have said in this column severally concerning the way foward with drugs. Your predecessor delayed by over a decade in declaring the HIV/AIDS pandemic a national disaster so that action could be taken.

Mr President, I am confident you will use the Tobacco day to announce the way foward and press for speedy implementation of the WHO-FCTC as well as the Tobacco Bill 2003. If not we might as well start smoking resigned to the fect that "if you can't beat them..."

David Ogot is a freelance journalist/producer specialising in drug absue prevention issues. A recovering alcoholic, he can be reached at goinghomedotcom@yahoo.com Website: www.goinghomedotcom.org

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