Cambodian Religious Leaders’ Opinion on Tobacco Control 2006

Buddhist monks and religious leaders are an influential social group in Cambodia. About 90% of Cambodia’s population of 13 million adhere to Buddhism by custom and tradition. This study provides evidence for policy makers on the current stance of Buddhist Leaders and Buddhist doctrine regarding tobacco usage, sales and promotion. It also demonstrates the potential role and influence that Buddhist leaders can have on the policy makers as they are considering ratification and enforcement of the National Law on Tobacco Control. It is through a clear understanding of these issues that policy makers can be accurately informed about how the Buddhist religion regards tobacco usage in order to formulate and take action on a National Law on Tobacco Control.

Major Findings

The current study, including both qualitative and quantitative survey and key informant interview methods, represents the opinions of the top 138 Buddhist religious leaders from all provinces and at the national level. It also provides a formal justification for the engagement of the Buddhist institution as a whole and for the protection of the Cambodian people's health.

Buddhist doctrine and practices are fully supportive to Anti-Tobacco promotion

The Five Precepts and the Noble Path of the Buddhist teaching advises one to refrain from using intoxicating drugs and to be mindful not to cause harm to oneself or others by one’s actions. The terminology, intoxicating drugs is accurately applied to tobacco products as they are addictive. Tobacco also is damaging to one’s health and that of others therefore smoking is a direct violation of Buddhist teachings. Ninety-nine point two percent of all monks and religious leaders interviewed agreed that smoking is both bad for health and is addictive and 100% believed that smoking is harmful to other people who are near by those who smoke.

It was observed that monks and religious leaders do hold to these beliefs with 85.4% of monks and religious leaders stating that “Buddhist teachings specifically prohibit smoking” in response to the question of “What do you think the teaching of Buddha has to say about smoking?”. Beyond this 99.2% of leading monks and religious leaders also stated that people should not offer cigarettes to monks and 96.9% of them agreed that monks themselves should not smoke. Samdech Preah Pauthivong Non Gnet said in an interview with the research team that “Buddhism teaches us to strive for good hygiene and to maintain good health. We should avoid the consumption of tobacco products, because they are not beneficial to health, as well they damage the health of smokers as well as those around them.” Samdech Preah Sangarach Bou Kry during his interview stated that “Buddhism teaches about several types of harms related to consumption of addictive products such as tobacco. Monks at all levels have been involved in extensive education of lay Buddhist followers teaching them not to offer cigarettes to monks because it is not a beneficial act as well as a destructive one….”

Buddhist Monks, religious leaders and the Buddhist Institution can play a major role in advocacy for Smoke-free Areas, a comprehensive advertising ban and ratification of national laws on Tobacco-Control

Monks and religious leaders strongly support tobacco control measures such as bans on tobacco advertising in all forms of media, placement and increased size of text and pictorial health warnings on tobacco packaging and cigarette tax increases, as shown by the positive response to each of the questions about supporting the following measures:

• 93.1% support increased health warning size.
• 93.8% support increased tobacco sales tax.
• 96.8% support pictorial warnings on tobacco products.
• 96.8% support banning all forms of media tobacco advertising.
• 100% will comply with future laws on smoking at Wats

These understandings and attitudes show clearly monks/religious leaders’ support of these measures and can have great impact in anti-tobacco advocacy.