Anti-tobacco activists want government earmark a substantive amount of money from the tobacco revenues earnings to management of Tobacco related illnesses.
Tobacco Control economists from the Center for Tobocco Control Ronald Namanya says that despite reports that the deadly crop fetches huge revenues for the country, government spends more money treating Cancer and Heart diseases caused by the tobacco consumption.
Analyzing the Tobacco economies, Namanya notes that the government earns a lot of revenue from Tobacco products yet its people are dying of tobacco related illness with help
Namanya says because of the social and economic costs, the government should devise means of getting more funds from the tobacco industry to address the enormous health dangers to the population.
Meanwhile the coordinator of the Uganda Health Communication Alliance Richard Baguma dismissed claims that the proposed Tobacco Control Bill seeks to ban smoking but it rather aims at protecting the poor and vulnerable non smokers.
This comes at a time when the law prohibiting public smoking has not been fully implemented.
Baguma says the Tobacco Control Bill seeks to propose stringent penalties for those who may smoke in the public places and end up affecting non-smokers.