Tobacco Companies Use All Sorts of Tactics
Speaking at the inauguration of the World Conference on Tobacco or Health (WOTCH), held at the ADNEC, in Abu Dhabi, on March 17 2015, the Chief of the World Health Organization, Dr. Margaret Chan welcomed steps taken by several countries, led by Australia, to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes. She called for similar action by other nations.
“Tobacco companies use all sorts of tactics including funding political parties, individual politicians to work for them… There is nothing they would not exploit to undermine the governments’ resolve and determination to protect their own people,” Chan stated.
Edouard Tursan d’Espaignet, the WHO coordinator of comprehensive information systems for tobacco control, said, “The industry has lobbies, has very strong powerful friends, and these people can interfere in the right working of the government. That’s why we’re here to defy and eradicate it.”
Addressing the tobacco control advocates, on March 18, 2015 at the Bloomberg Awards ceremony at the WOTCH Conference, in Abu Dhabi, Michael R. Bloomberg and Bill Gates announced the launch of the Anti-Tobacco Trade Litigation Fund, a new joint effort to combat the tobacco industry’s use of international trade agreements to threaten and prevent countries from passing strong tobacco-control laws. Backed by Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the new support for low and middle-income countries is the most recent element in a comprehensive strategy to reduce tobacco use globally. Tobacco will claim 1 billion lives in this century unless urgent action is taken.
“We are at a critical moment in the global effort to reduce tobacco use, because the significant gains we have seen are at risk of being undermined by the tobacco industry’s use of trade agreements and litigation,” said Michael R. Bloomberg. “We will stand with nations as they work to protect their populations against the deadly health effects of tobacco use.”
Since 2010, Uruguay has been fighting a legal challenge by Philip Morris International against the country’s graphic health warnings on tobacco products with support from Bloomberg Philanthropies and international tobacco control advocates. Australia is currently fending off both a World Trade Organization (WTO) challenge and a legal challenge by Philip Morris International against its national law that requires cigarette packs to be sold in drab colors with only the graphic health warnings – a tobacco control policy referred to as “plain packaging”.
Numerous additional countries have been threatened by the tobacco industry, a tactic that can lead to delays by governments in passing and implementing the best-practice tobacco control laws called for in the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) – the world’s first health treaty that has been adopted by more than 180 countries globally.
In addition to supporting countries facing suit before international trade tribunals, the Anti-Tobacco Trade Litigation Fund includes:
1) Technical assistance in legislative drafting and documentation to avoid legal challenges and potential trade disputes from the passage of tobacco-control laws
2) Support of global best practices in tobacco control and coordinated efforts to document industry wrongdoing
3) Litigation support to low- and middle-income countries to help defend laws in the form of financial support and access to high quality legal assistance
4) Communications support to educate and inform the public about the industry challenges to tobacco control policy and abuse of the trade system
5) Assistance in accessing knowledgeable tobacco control experts and mobilizing support among the global public health community to help countries defend against tobacco industry litigation
6) Creation of a network of senior lawyers, experienced in trade litigation to support countries
Washington, DC–based Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids will administer the fund, coordinating resources including funding, technical assistance, media attention, and support from the global public health community to help countries stand against the tobacco industry when threatened with trade litigation.
“This timely support from Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will encourage low- and middle-income countries under attack from tobacco companies to fight back,” said Matthew L. Myers, President of Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. “The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids looks forward to leveraging this support to ensure that comprehensive assistance is provided to countries whose sovereign right to protect public health is threatened by tobacco companies inappropriately manipulating trade agreements.”
The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK) is leading force in the fight to reduce tobacco use and its deadly toll in the United States and around the world. The CTFK’s vision is a future free of the death and disease caused by tobacco. The CTFK works to save lives by advocating for public policies that prevent kids from smoking, help smokers quit and protect everyone from secondhand smoke.
The Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use aims to cut global use of tobacco by supporting low and middle-income countries to implement proven tobacco control policies as outlined in the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), such as creating smoke-free public places, banning tobacco advertising, increasing tax on tobacco products and increasing public awareness. Bloomberg Philanthropies has committed $600 million since 2007 to combat tobacco use worldwide. More than one billion people are now protected with smoke-free legislation and other effective tobacco control policies.
Bloomberg Philanthropies’ mission is to ensure better, longer lives for the greatest number of people.
In the meantime at the closing ceremony of the WOTCH held on March 21, 2015, the countries were urged to take steps to reduce the consumption of tobacco which it said was a leading cause of disease and death worldwide.
In its final declaration, the 16th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health in Abu Dhabi also called for wider implementation of World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for cutting smoking rates and reducing the burden of non-communicable diseases.
The five-day conference, which declared that all tobacco products are harmful, said they “pose an especially heavy burden on low- and middle-income countries and should be de-normalized worldwide.”
It insisted that tobacco use, in all its forms, is a major contributor to the occurrence of non-communicable disease (NCDs), such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and respiratory diseases.
Organizers warned that tobacco causes one in six of all NCD deaths and that almost half of current tobacco users will eventually die of tobacco-related disease.
And despite a decline in the number of smokers in many countries, more needs to be done to curb tobacco use to meet the global target of a 30 percent reduction in consumption by 2025.
According to the WHO, one person dies every six seconds due to tobacco -- nearly six million people each year. It warns that unless urgent action is taken, the annual toll could rise to eight million by 2030.
The WHO says NCDs kill 35 million people annually, of whom 80 percent are in low- and middle-income countries.
The WHO framework convention on tobacco sets out guidelines on steps governments can take, including punitive tax measures; bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship; the creation of smoke-free work and public spaces, prominent health warnings on tobacco packages and combatting illicit trade.
The treaty has been signed by 180 countries but implementation “has fallen short of objectives,” and the conference urged global cooperation to fully implement it.
The conference called for all countries to have ratified the treaty by 2018, at as well as for at least 30 countries to have adopted plain packaging and at least 100 requiring graphic warnings covering more than 50 percent of cigarette packets.
And it said that at least 15 additional countries should introduce a 70 percent hike in taxes on the retail price of tobacco products.
It also supported an initiative to be voted by parliament in the Australian state of Tasmania Tuesday to ban tobacco sales to all those born this century, to achieve a “tobacco-free generation.”
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