The Healthy Caribbean Coalition (HCC) is collaborating with the Trinidad and Tobago Cancer Society to strengthen the Trinidad and Tobago Coalition for Tobacco Control.

A meeting is being held today in Trinidad to initiate a process that will lead to the official establishment of the Trinidad and Tobago Coalition for Tobacco Control.

The Tobacco Control Act 2009 was passed in Parliament in December 2009 and some of its sections were proclaimed. The Act has now been passed in its entirety and there is a need for implementing and monitoring this legislation. 

The meeting will bring together CARPHA (the Caribbean Public Health Agency), PAHO, civil society organizations, the Trinidad & Tobago Ministry of Health including personnel from the Trinidad & Tobago Tobacco Control Unit, and others. It will leverage the experience of the Jamaica Coalition for Tobacco Control (JCTC), who in partnership with the Jamaican Ministry of Health has advocated relentlessly against this powerful and well-connected industry since 2002.

It is expected that the meeting will lead to the increased awareness of the value of tobacco coalitions and build commitment towards the establishment of a Trinidad and Tobago Coalition for Tobacco Control as well as the development of a draft plan of action/workplan.

HCC's Regional Status Report released in March this year reported that despite almost all CARICOM countries having ratified the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), few have implemented the provisions of the Treaty, with for example only four of them enacting legislation banning smoking in public places, very few having programmes in place for treatment of tobacco dependency and only very few having enacted legislation against tobacco company sponsorship and advertising of tobacco products.

While a select few Caribbean territories have made progress, most continue to struggle to move forward with the development and enactment of tobacco control legislation.

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