Standing committee proposes province-wide ban on sheesha

The Sindh Assembly’s Standing Committee on Home has advised the provincial government to impose a ban on the unhealthy practice of sheesha smoking across the province.
The standing committee held a meeting in the Sindh Assembly’s committee room with Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) lawmaker Syed Awais Qadir Shah in chair on Tuesday. The meeting was held to consider the bill moved to the committee in the light of a Supreme Court of Pakistan’s ruling to impose ban on sheesha smoking in the province.
Sindh Law Minister Ziaul Hassan Lanjar said Punjab and other provinces had already imposed a ban on the sheesha smoking. “The unhealthy practice causes serious respiratory and lung-related ailments to youths and other people,” he said. The minister said youths of the province should be protected from this unhealthy practice.
He said the police’s support was required to take action against eateries offering the facility of sheesha smoking to their customers. The standing committee unanimously approved the bill in question and referred it back to the Sindh Assembly for adoption.
In October 2016, the Supreme Court of Pakistan had summoned the federal secretaries of commerce and health to explain as to why necessary steps were not taken for banning the import of tobacco and other ingredients for smoking sheesha. A three-member bench of the apex court headed by the then chief justice, Anwar Zaheer Jamali, and comprising Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed and Justice Umer Ata Bandyal had resumed hearing of a suo moto case on sheesha ban in the country.
The CJ had expressed his dismay over the delaying tactics of the federal and provincial governments in banning sheesha smoking in the country.