SOMALIA’S SHIFTING SANDS OBSCURE HEALTHY TOBACCO TRADE

BY WACHIRA KIGOTHO TO say Somalia is a mixed bag for the tobacco industry is an understatement. On the one hand, there is a very weak formal government, whose writ does not run in much of the country. So no public place smoking bans, advertising restrictions and ingredient controls to worry about in this east African country: tobacco is sold freely through a thriving private sector. On the other hand, hardline Islamists control much of the Somali capital Mogadishu and almost all southern Somalia and some want to ban cigarette smoking altogether, as non-Islamic. ...


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