An­na-Lisa Paul

As greater ef­forts are made to crack down on the il­lic­it trade in to­bac­co prod­ucts lo­cal­ly, the Mul­ti-Agency Task Force (MATF) and the To­bac­co Con­trol Unit seized 115, 766 cig­a­rettes be­tween 2021 and 2022.

This was re­vealed dur­ing a T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) week­ly me­dia brief­ing last Thurs­day by ASP Leon Haynes who heads the MATF. He said the mul­ti-agency ini­tia­tive has been pro­duc­ing pos­i­tive re­sults.

The seizure in­clud­ed “cig­a­rettes not li­censed to be dis­trib­uted in Trinidad and To­ba­go, a num­ber of which breached the pack­ag­ing and la­belling re­quire­ment in re­la­tion to the reg­u­la­tions,” Haynes said.

“Re­cent­ly, there was a change in the re­quire­ment that all cig­a­rette prod­ucts have a par­tic­u­lar la­belling, and that is what we con­sid­er to be il­lic­it if those la­belling re­quire­ments are not com­pli­ant,” he said.

The MATF head said the Bu­reau of Stan­dards had to be brought in af­ter cer­tain elec­tri­cal items on sale in some su­per­mar­kets and busi­ness­es were found to be “sub­stan­dard,” pos­ing a dan­ger as “fire haz­ards.”

Haynes said ex­er­cis­es had re­sult­ed in the seizure of 3,264 ex­ten­sion cords, 1,432 pow­er strips, 1,390 LED lights, 363 Christ­mas lights, 790 as­sort­ed elec­tri­cal ap­pli­ances, 1,983 phone adapters and 837 glue guns.

Ex­plain­ing how ex­er­cis­es are car­ried out and what items can be seized by of­fi­cers, Haynes said canned meats and prod­ucts which car­ry for­eign pack­ag­ing la­bels which do not eas­i­ly iden­ti­fy the con­tents are among those items. In ad­di­tion, of­fi­cers seized ap­prox­i­mate­ly 5,937 phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals which were to be sold on­ly in phar­ma­cies but man­aged to land on gro­cery and par­lours shelves.

“Every­body has been sell­ing these phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and it is clear­ly a dan­ger­ous prac­tice,” he said.

Haynes the MATF ef­forts are aimed at en­sur­ing cit­i­zens get val­ue for mon­ey “to re­duce the amount of sub-stan­dard items that are be­ing sold to our cit­i­zens.”

Re­spond­ing yes­ter­day, the Min­istry of Health (MOH) as­sured it is com­mit­ted to an all-of -gov­ern­ment ap­proach in the re­moval of il­lic­it drugs and unau­tho­rised food from the coun­try.

“The Min­istry’s col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Mul­ti-Agency Task Force (MATF) of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has re­sult­ed in the re­moval of il­lic­it prod­ucts from the mar­ket to pro­tect con­sumers and there­by re­duce il­le­git­i­mate trade and eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty in the coun­try.

“Since il­lic­it trade is linked to crime and crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, the work of the MATF was re­quired to en­sure that leg­is­la­tion reg­u­lat­ing the man­u­fac­tur­ing, im­port­ing, ex­port­ing or dis­tri­b­u­tion of drugs and or food is ef­fect­ed,” a re­lease from the Min­istry stat­ed.

Any per­son who wish­es to man­u­fac­ture, im­port, ex­port or dis­trib­ute to­bac­co prod­ucts whole­sale is re­quired to meet the li­cen­sure, pack­ag­ing and la­belling re­quire­ments of the To­bac­co Con­trol Act, Chap­ter 30:01 and the To­bac­co Con­trol Reg­u­la­tions.

The new pack­ag­ing and la­belling re­quire­ments took ef­fect last Sep­tem­ber 26.

Un­der the To­bac­co Con­trol Act, seizures are pri­mar­i­ly car­ried out by au­tho­rized of­fi­cers, specif­i­cal­ly po­lice and cus­toms of­fi­cers, with sup­port from the To­bac­co Con­trol Unit of the Min­istry of Health.

Ac­cord­ing to the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion’s (WHO) de­f­i­n­i­tion, il­lic­it to­bac­co prod­ucts are those which are in breach of the coun­try’s to­bac­co laws such as tax laws, pack­ag­ing and la­belling re­quire­ments and li­cens­ing.

The Min­istry said: “Pur­suant to the Food and Drugs Act, Chap­ter 30:1, and the Food and Drugs Reg­u­la­tions, every ar­ti­cle of food is re­quired to be la­belled or pack­aged as re­quired. Fur­ther, every ar­ti­cle of food is re­quired to meet gen­er­al and/or spe­cif­ic food qual­i­ty/safe­ty stan­dards as de­lin­eat­ed in the Food and Drugs Act and Reg­u­la­tions. These la­belling re­quire­ments and food qual­i­ty/safe­ty stan­dards al­so ap­ply to im­port­ed food prod­ucts.

“Fur­ther, every new drug is re­quired to be reg­is­tered un­der the Food and Drugs Act and Reg­u­la­tions. All drugs must meet the drug qual­i­ty/safe­ty stan­dards and pack­ag­ing and la­belling re­quire­ments as de­lin­eat­ed in the Food and Drugs Act and Reg­u­la­tions. More­over, An­tibi­otics and Nar­cotics, al­so re­quire li­cen­sure pur­suant to the An­tibi­otics Act, Chap­ter 30:02 and the Nar­cot­ic Con­trol (Dis­tri­b­u­tion and Li­cens­ing) Reg­u­la­tions, 1965.”

The Health Min­istry said it would con­tin­ue to col­lab­o­rate with the MATF to en­sure the pro­tec­tion and safe­ty of the pub­lic.