PAS Center launches project to reduce tobacco use

The Center for Health Policy and Studies (PAS) is launching a project aimed at reducing tobacco consumption in Moldova, in partnership with the Public Health Management School of the State University of Medicine and Pharmaceutics “Nicolae Testemitanu”. The project will assist the Ministry of Health in reviewing the national legislation in the field and will plead for the adoption of a law on tobacco control, Info-Prim Neo reports, quoting a communique from the PAS Center. The project will also help create a national council on tobacco control that will coordinate the intersector activities aimed at reducing tobacco use and will strengthen the alliance of partners at different levels – governmental and nongovernmental. The project envisions the active involvement of civil society in decision making by supporting the Government's efforts to formulate, approve and implement legislation adjusted to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which was ratified by Moldova on December 31, 2008. The project “Pleading for a Comprehensive National Legal Framework for Tobacco Control, compliant with the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control” is implemented with support from Bloomberg Philanthropies. The project has a budget of over US$160,000 and will last from February 2011 until January 2013. It became the winner of the seventh financing round of the Grants Program of the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use. According to the annual report “Illegal Drug Trafficking and Consumption in Moldova in 2008”, the smoking men in Moldova make up 52% of the men, while the smoking women 7.4% of the women. Half of the Moldovan students aged between 13 and 15 started to smoke under 10. The smoke exposure rate is also high. The same report shows six of the ten respondents said they were exposed to smoke in public places, while 53.3% at home.