AT LEAST one parliamentarian is agitating for the makers of tobacco to depict, in bold letters and pictures, information on what he said was the "indisputable medical truth that smoking causes impotence".

According to Central Kingston Member of Parliament Ronald Thwaites, this would serve as one of the most effective measures of deterring persons from smoking.

Thwaites had asked Health Minister Rudyard Spencer on Tuesday in Parliament to outline the Government's plans to introduce legislation restricting the use of tobacco.

Responding, Spencer said the administration would, this parliamentary year, table comprehensive legislation dealing with the restriction of tobacco use locally.

Inducing more addicts

The Central Kingston MP cautioned that any delay in the tabling of the proposed law dealing with tobacco use would provide an opportunity for the manufacturers of tobacco to "induce more addicts and to inevitably cause more sickness and death".

However, Spencer told his parliamentary colleagues that tobacco producers have been printing on their packets the harmful use of tobacco. He said there had been a four per cent reduction in the use of the product since 1978.

Thwaites was not convinced that the "small advertisement" on the cigarette boxes was a sufficient deterrent to smoking.

"You will appreciate that a four per cent reduction in the use of tobacco is very significant, and I must say we are moving in the right direction," Spencer pointed out.