President Solih has inaugurated the “Regulation on Packaging and Labelling of Tobacco Products”  The regulation also forbids the sale of individual cigarettes.

The inauguration of the new regulation took place at a ceremony held at the Maldives National University yesterday.

The “Regulation on Packaging and Labelling of Tobacco Products” also enforces the placement of warning labels for health, on the outside of tobacco products such as cigarettes.

Generating awareness on the dangers of tobacco products was one of  the 100 day campaign pledges of President Solih.

Speaking at the ceremony, Deputy Director of the Health Protection Agency, Hassan Mohamed, said that many who begin smoking are initially unaware of what cigarettes actually are.  He said that majority of drug users are previous smokers.

The Deputy Director also reiterated that the lack of labels lead to many treating the box as a fashionable object. He said that the box displays the positive features of the product and that the public is now used to the way cigarette boxes appear.