Skip to main content

Smoking in Bhutan

Recently I see policemen and the concerned authority reprimanding the businessmen and shopkeepers not to sell tobacco products, at a meeting in Thimphu on BBS. It is nice to see people acting on the mandates. But sometimes I wonder if putting such a ban on the products many people are willing to pay so much, is a good decision. National Assembly might disagree. The thriving black market is an evidence. Some shopkeepers have already lost their trade licenses, dashing the hopes of some humble men. 

Let’s face it. How fair is the cancellation of one’s trade license? Does it reduce the number of smokers in the country? Does it promote GNH society and the principles of a democratic country? I think the ban helps no one. At the best, the country might earn some recognition in being a tobacco free country, which we cannot claim with so many people smoking in the country. And if there is no black market or an outlet for such products, how do people get them in the first place? Sellers will continue to sell as long as we have smokers to smoke.

And just in two years I was a forced witness to the closing of two bookshops in town in this part of the country. In a place where books have no readers, what else can shopkeepers sell?

This is a country where doctors who smoke cigarettes and chew domas talk on television and radio stations how harmful such products are. 


Well, let me make this straight. Neither do I smoke nor am I a shopkeeper selling tobacco products. A personal reflection - offense to none.    


(Photo Courtesy: bbc.co.uk

Comments

  1. It will take time or maybe it will never change. We were the first country in the world to ban tobacco use but some other country has claimed the title. I think it is just because we are far from being a tobacco free country. Tobacco is found in the schools, work places, everywhere.

    Nice read buddy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm from a country like Bhutan( never been colonize) and i hope my king will make the same decision banning tobacco. smoking is just a waste of money, medicine and killing peoples.

    malo

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

So what do you think?

Popular posts from this blog

Utpal Academy - Bhutan's first All-girls High School

Academic Block Welcome to Bhutan’s first all-girls school. Isn’t that wonderful news to all our parents? Certainly, as a parent of a one-year old daughter I am excited about the coming of a school exclusively dedicated to the needs of girls. Our girls need special treatment, which we can for sure entrust the responsibility to Utal Academy, Paro. Dinning Hall I really like the name – Utpal – in Buddhist world, Utpal is another name for lotus flower, which is believed to grow from mud and yet blossoms into a beautiful and majestic flower. It stands for purity and many deities are depicted holding flower Utpal, more prominently Jestusn Dolma, the Goddess Tara. Symbolically, it also stands for the transformation of our girls. What an apt name for the school! Hostel Room The Principal’s message posted on the academy’s website promises providing our young women an “opportunity to participate fully in a wide range of extracurricular activities to develop skills and qualities that

System Thinking

System is a collection of interrelated elements that create one complete and unified whole. All components within it constantly interact with each other to achieve a specific purpose.  For example, a car is a highly sophisticated form of a system. Hundreds of different parts work together to make it move in the desired direction, and even if a small part is missing, the car will fail to run.  From the system, I learnt that system thinking is a perspective of things around us, which makes us see how everything is connected to other things. In the above example, it is not just the motor that creates the motion in the car but combined work of all the parts in the vehicle. For example, even if everything works, without an accelerator, the car will not move in the desired speed that we want it to run.    Therefore, system thinking forces us to think about the relationships between things and how they influence the overall system. It makes us see the bigger picture. For example, when we buy

Fighting RCSCE-phobia

Now that the orientation is over, graduates all over Bhutan would be hunting for information and scratching through all our history books. And in absence of readily available information, it is going to be so frustrating for many. There are are aspirants like Tashi.P Ganzin who are already seeking divine intervention- whether to appear or not to.  This is the biggest moment in a graduate’s life – it’s time to learn and relearn so many things about the home and the world. And they need good attention from their parents and relatives, guidance and advice from elders. I am sure all 1300 graduates who attended the NGOP may not appear RCSC Common examination, but we need to inspire and encourage those that brave the odds. Many of my friends are waiting to take the exam of their life – their future will either be made or broken when RCSC declares the results. And my full prayers and support are with them. They are terribly afraid of it to say the least. I heard while there are no prob