A Compulsory Research Report Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Award of Bachelor of Laws (LLB) Degree of Mzumbe University
Protection of the Right to Health of Secondary Smokers in Tanzania is an issue which has been less addressed despite of the legal implications and health policies. The issue remains to be a problem which is unresolved as there are less legal repercussion to smokers. And as a result, health of the secondhand smokers who are the majority is endangered mostly leading to diseases like cancer and others. Thus the need to strike a balance and curb the problem concerning right to health, as a paramount right in human development as opposed to smoking habit which are likely to hamper this right.
The methodology used in this study relied much on both primary and secondary data collected through interviews, questionnaire, online Research and Library research which exposed the researcher with vast insight concerning the study at hand. In both the structured and unstructured interviews, the researcher was afforded a chance to interview people from a variety of all sorts of lives and professions which proved to be imperative to this study.
A number of challenges have been addressed in this study as follows: the failure of smoking laws to properly regulate public smoking, the need of public sensitization on right to health and legal measures against public smoking, presence of abstract health policies rather than effective ones, the need to deal with public smoking judicially rather than imposing petty measures and many more.
The study also sought to establish that smoking in Tanzania should be reviewed for a better regulation and enhancement of right to health which is affected as a result of public smoking being dealt with ineffective measures.
Also on the need to enforce health policies legally by enacting and amending existing laws to be relevant with the current health policies so as to uphold the right to health in the country. Thus the study brings about a way forward towards striking a balance between the right to health and other activities which are likely to endanger it, by reviewing all professional medical and legal options.