Enforcement
in
Tobacco Control
Challenges & Way Ahead

The Enforcement
Key to success of any
it’
legislation depends on it’s
effective
ENFORCEMENT
The same is true for “Tobacco Control” laws too
Unfortunately enforcement component gets very
little attention and not much work has been done
on enforcement of tobacco control laws

Challenges of Enforcement
Lack of awareness about the rationale of the
“tobacco issue” and about tobacco control laws
among enforcers
Lack about the provisions of the law and how it can
be connected with other laws
Lack of proper training
Perceived low importance of law
Smokers among the law enforcers who have diluted
commitment towards the law

Enforcement Date
Creating an appropriate enforcement
date:
Why it is important?
Gives time to raise the compliance to a certain level before
the formal announcement comes
Pushes Tobacco Control into the priority list
It puts things in the right perspective
Timelines and deadlines give the sense of urgency
Allows time for Public Education campaigns
Allows time for training of the enforcers, preparing for the
action and plugging the weak links.

Fixing the modalities
Questions which need to be answered
before enforcement initiated?
Which all agencies/departments would be the implementing agencies
for the law?
Who will coordinate between different departments for varied
functionalities of enforcement? The agency/department responsible
for delegation.
What additional resources/funds would be required?
Who will prepare the guidelines and decide the enforcement
procedures?
Who will train the enforcers?

Enforcement procedures
The Checklist
Formed a central unit to plan, supervise and coordinate activities
Clearly defined agencies to implement various provisions of the
legislation
Delegated responsibilities, assigned roles and clear guidelines
issued
Created a proper mechanism and trained the implementing units
on the same
Proper enforcement methods defined
Empowered the agencies by way of proper orders/notification
and/or rules
Proper provisions for providing adequate funding and resources
put in place

Taking Cognizance – Penal
Provisions
Simple way of making complaints for penal action
Easy system of taking cognizance/notice of
violation
Well defined procedure on initiating prosecution and
levying penalties

Taking Cognizance – Penal
Provisions
Defining the courts/judicial bodies empowered to try
Compounding mechanism for petty offences under the law
Clearly defining officers who are empowered to compound
the offences
Defining the ways/methods by which of fines/penalties are
to be collected and deposited in government treasury

Guiding – Monitoring –
Corrective Actions
Place a system of monitoring of violations in place
A procedure for compliance checking
Regular reporting and centralised monitoring point
Collection of statistics and keeping a record of offenders and
violations
USING THE MONITORING INFORMATION FOR
Realigning partners at regular intervals
Retraining
Training and sensitising the new partners
Documenting successes and good practice
Identifying bottle-necks and plugging them

Compliance Vs. Enforcement
Differentiate between compliance and enforcement and
develop a procedure to keep separate record of both –
compliance and enforcement are interdependent but good
compliance is no reason to be complacent – Low level and
irregular enforcement will eventually lead to low
compliance; and vice versa
COMPLIANCE:
When people obey the law and follow it voluntary
ENFORCEMENT:
When an agency empowered to act under the Act has
to take corrective action/penal action and
prosecute/penalise the violators

Enforcement

Way Ahead
Building a strategic media communication plan to
generate pointed public opinion and sensitize law
enforcers
Training the law enforcers
Ensuring a proper and effective system of
continuous monitoring of enforcement is in place
Regular sensitization, training and monitoring to
keep things on track

Way Ahead
Standardize enforcement procedures, forms and
records, systematic recordkeeping, and tracking of
compliance data.
Establish a complaints procedure to receive reports
of violations and follow them up.
Ensure sufficient legal and other staff to review
violations and ensure they are acted upon.

Way Ahead
Establish a mechanism for evaluating the effectiveness of
the inspection and enforcement process. For example, the
number of inspections, number of cases taken forward,
number successfully prosecuted, data trends, and results
reporting, should all be tracked.
Incorporate inspections for tobacco control into other
programmed inspections where legally possible and
feasible. For example, smoke-free law can be incorporated
into health and safety, municipal laws, food safety,
consumer safety, building control, and licensing inspections.

Prioritizing Enforcement
Developing a strategic priority of enforcement
- Categorize offences and connect to other criminal laws
- Developing a different level of seriousness for each
category of offences
- Identifying separate enforcement officers for different level
- Violations relating to product promotion and advertising
- Sale to Minors, etc.
- Public Smoking
- Monitoring

FOCUS
Remember:
Key to success of Tobacco
Control legislation depends
it’
on it’s effective
ENFORCEMENT