Hypocritical hostility.

The international wave of hostility against smokers and chewers of tobacco is set to worsen on our shores. We are set to emblazon all cigarette packs and all conveyances for cigarettes with graphic images - that is, disturbing and gory pictures - depicting various ill outcomes of tobacco products. I have nothing against that. Rotten teeth, blackened lungs and all manner of warnings should be conveyed to those fortunate enough never have to partaken of the Devil's Stick.

We shouldn't stop there, though. The long term plan of the national and county government should be to phase out the production of tobacco for human consumption, unless such consumption is not the road to cancer, emphysema, asthma, tooth decay or death. The government is a hypocritical beast and it will not flat out declare a ban on tobacco or tobacco-growing so long as the excise it collects from tobacco and tobacco-related products continue to swell its ever-empty coffers. But if it is truly serious about cutting down on the harmful effects of tobacco on the human body, then the government should strive t identify that alternate use for tobacco that will generate the same revenue as the addiction of millions of Kenyans.

But we all know how these things go. Big Tobacco is not known for rolling over and playing dead. It never has and it most certainly won't do so in Kenya. It has lost major battles in major western markets, but in the Least Developed countries of the world it as found a ready market, a pliant government and a weak civil society incapable of standing up to Big Business. (Before you get all hot under the collar about my lumping Kenya with the LDCs, just know this: Kenya provides a ready market, a pliant government and a weak civil society that has taken some serious knocks since 2005.)

So it is almost certain that the first half of the bargain will come to pass but the other that will wean millions of Kenyans off of the poison, save the national economy billions in doctors' fees and drugs' costs, provide an alternative market for tobacco farmers and all around make Kenya a better place will be ignored and given short shrift, not least by Big Tobacco. The writing is on the wall. It may not happen this decade, or the next, but sooner or later the world will ban cigarettes and similar tobacco products. We know it. They know it. They are the ones burying their heads in the sand.