Govt To Launch New Shisha Crackdown, Despite Court Ruling
It is worth noting that in March 2024, the Shanzu Law Courts in Mombasa declared the ban on the importation, sale and use of shisha as unconstitutional
Viral Tea Ke Writer 
Health Principal Secretary Mary Muthoni has announced that the government is set to launch a new nationwide crackdown on shisha, a move that could hit hard those trading in the business of selling shisha in any local joint in the country and making a huge profit from it.
According to Muthoni, the Ministry of Health expressed thorough concern with the sales and consumption of the product that not only harms the primary consumers but also secondary consumers, putting both at risk.
Speaking in Murang’a during a Community Health Promoters (CHPs) sensitisation and training workshop at the Mahuti Catholic Church on Friday, January 24, PS Muthoni revealed that there was a lurking danger in the tobacco product, whose importation, distribution, sale and consumption is prohibited in the country.
According to PS Muthoni, a multi-agency team, comprising key stakeholders in health and security is in the final stages of launching a nationwide campaign that will nab key personalities involved in the illicit trade.
Health PS Mary Muthoni speaking while chairing the National Taskforce on Mpox and Marburg Virus Disease on October 31, 2024. /MINISTRY OF HEALTH
The crackdown will be launched countrywide simultaneously as county security teams are also heavily involved. She however did not give an exact date but outlined that the crackdown will start anytime and will also target products that are not well labelled, especially on the effects they cause to the user.
It is worth noting that in March 2024, the Shanzu Law Courts in Mombasa declared the ban on the importation, sale and use of shisha as unconstitutional, setting an unprecedented turn of events following the numerous crackdowns on the drug across the country.
The courts ruled on the ban while setting free 48 persons who had been arrested and charged for selling and smoking shisha in January 2024. Senior Principal Magistrate Joe Mkutu ruled on Thursday, March 28 that there is "no valid or lawful ban" on the use, manufacture, sale or offer for sale of shisha in the country.
The judge had accused the Cabinet Secretary for Health of failing to comply with a 2018 High Court ruling that directed the CS for Health to regularize the Public Health (Control of Shisha) smoking rules of 2017 by forwarding them to Parliament for approval.
In the 2018 ruling, Justice Roselyn Aburili found that the shisha ban imposed by then Health CS Cleopa Mailu through a gazette notice dated December 28, 2018, was irregular but allowed it to remain in force. This allowed the Health minister nine months to regularise the ban by following the procedural requirements, which included considering the ban by Parliament.
Since the requirement was never met, Magistrate Mkutu ruled that the ban ceased to be operational following the lapse of the nine months issued by Justice Aburili.
The ruling came amidst a crackdown mounted jointly by the National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) and the police on clubs advertising, promoting and distributing shisha. Despite the ruling, the government remains bullish and is set to move ahead with the crackdown plans anyway, with the Ministry of Health expressing concern over persistent shisha consumption in various establishments across the country
Section 163 of the Public Health Act enacted in 2017 stipulates that offenders may face a fine not exceeding Ksh50,000, imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or both.
