Although the law adopted in 2022 prohibits the public display of substitutes for tobacco products, placing them in a visible place for the consumer and smoking in public eating places, these requirements are often not observed in our society.
They heard about it also in the RA Ministry of Health.
Taking into account the numerous complaints that in many places, for example, the ban on smoking is not kept, the ministry has developed an application that will allow citizens to inform the structures authorized by the law, where and which point of the law is violated.
Lena Nanushyan, First Deputy Minister of Health, in a conversation with "Haykakan Zhamanak" elaborates that, according to the results of monitoring, the ban on selling tobacco products in visible places is mostly kept, but the society can also help in the elimination of violations when it comes to keeping other bans.
According to him, when the law was adopted, it was adopted to protect everyone's health.
"We need to form a public demand for law enforcement among our citizens.
The citizen must also contribute in order for the law to work. This law will work for the health of their families and relatives, therefore they should have a certain participation in public control," he emphasizes.
Citizens will be able to indicate in the application the place - the store, or the restaurant, the cafe - where, for example, they will encounter any violation related to the tobacco law clause. The bodies implementing the control service will also access the application to see where and what violation was recorded.
"Where more violations were recorded, the citizens mentioned, those places will be shown in bright red.
In the future, we will also have the function of drawing. Now the application is in the technical stage, we are testing how well it works in a small circle of people. None of the citizens wants to go to a place where there is strong cigarette smoke, which will affect family members and children.
Maybe they will see a violation in a place and will not visit that place the next time," says the deputy minister.
Both the Ministry of Internal Affairs police and inspection bodies are the controlling bodies in the matter of law enforcement, but their resources are very few, so this application will contribute to the efficiency of their work. "According to the current law, each inspectorate has its own function to ensure that cigarettes are not sold openly and are not sold to children.
The police of the Ministry of Internal Affairs monitors the observance of the ban on smoking in restaurants or cafes.
According to the deputy minister, all these actions are aimed at the coming generation not to smoke, to understand that smoking is not fashionable. "I think most of our citizens have learned and a culture has already formed that if they are somewhere and smoking is not allowed, they should go out, smoke in the designated place, and come back in again. Tobacco is not an everyday product, it is harmful and should be stopped.
The same applies to all tobacco products. For example, smoking via vape devices is also prohibited by law.
If citizens notice such cases, they should raise the alarm. All these measures are harmful to public health."
Nanushyan is convinced that this will bring vigilance to various organizations, because not everyone will want to appear as a red dot on the app's map.
Citizens will not feel constrained to report their violations, says the deputy minister, no identification will be required in the application, the report will be quick and easy.
According to the deputy minister, citizens are now clearly aware that tobacco is a harmful product that causes many diseases.
More than 8 million people die each year from tobacco use, of which more than 7 million are smokers and ex-smokers, and more than 1.3 million are non-smokers exposed to secondhand smoke.
According to the data of sample surveys of the health care system conducted in Armenia in 2022, 25.5% of the population over 16 years old smokes every day. The majority of smokers are male representatives (men: 53.2%, women - 2%).
