CNS: tobacco politics

Showing posts with label tobacco politics. Show all posts

[video] Engaging media to expose, debunk and counter lies and deception of tobacco industry

#APCAT2022 Declaration: Is it the clarion call to #endTobacco?

Tobacco use is among the unhealthy behaviours that result in preventable burden of cancers, strokes, and heart diseases, said Budi Gunadi Sadikin, Indonesia’s health minister. In Indonesia tobacco use is the second largest risk factor for untimely deaths, he added. World Health Organization had earlier underlined that without clamping tobacco use, we cannot deliver on the promises enshrined in the Sustainable Development Goals.

Countries to set stage for widespread legal action against tobacco industry

Aarti Dhar, CNS Correspondent, India

[First published in India Saga on 20th October 2016]
Representatives of close to 179 countries will meet next month for the seventh session of the Conference of the Parties of the global tobacco treaty to take some of the most powerful steps in tobacco control since the World Health Organization treaty’s adoption. At the Conference, to be held at Greater Noida near India’s National Capital New Delhi from November 7 to 12, countries will advance a provision to hold the tobacco industry civilly and criminally liable for its abuses.

The tobacco industry to get ready for plain packaging

Alice Tembe, CNS Correspondent, Swaziland

The tobacco industry continues to use aggressive tactics to wedge stumbling blocks to abate and delay tobacco control measures that help to protect the general public from dire health risks. The World No Tobacco Day, that is commemorated on the 31st May every year, was introduced by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1988 to highlight the devastating impact of tobacco use on health, as well as to advocate for policies that help people quit tobacco use and discourage non-users from starting.

Diana Wangari, CNS Correspondent, Kenya
(First published in The Star, Kenya)
I must confess, there are health concerns that amaze me – not because they are complex or a rare find, but because I simply cannot understand how they are still an issue. These often fall under lifestyle choices, and a good example is cigarette smoking. When in primary school, we used to have a drug awareness week and the last day would be dedicated to tobacco. The reason behind it was that the session utilized what many would refer to as graphic images of the effects of smoking – from yellowing of teeth to a darkened lung in the late stages of lung cancer.

Indian parliamentarian who is chairing the committee which told the government not to implement stronger pictorial graphic health warnings on tobacco packs (and raise the warning size from 40% to 85%) from 1st April 2015, casted doubts whether tobacco causes cancer. India is at risk of reversing the gains made in saving lives from tobacco! He is the same parliamentarian who had raised similar questions in the parliament in 2011 and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of the Government of India had given him detailed response underlining the alarming magnitude of the tobacco pandemic in the country.

[Audio podcast] This the first time ever when global tobacco treaty negotiations are taking place in Russian Federation. While sharing an internal tobacco industry document that is now in public domain, Dr Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) said: “One record shows that there was an internal discussion whether the [tobacco] industry should consider children as part of its market. I remember very well one reply which I would like to quote: ‘they have got lips, we want them’. They [tobacco industries] just want market share, they could not care less whether they are killing children or not.”

Shobha Shukla, CNS Columnist
With nearly 35% of India’s adult population (age 15+) consuming some form of tobacco, there are around 275 million people in the country smoking and/or chewing this poison, and an estimated 1 million dying every year from tobacco related diseases. Moreover 27% of the youth (age group 13-15 years) are exposed to second hand smoke at home and 40% are exposed to second hand smoke in public places. Bidis or cheap hand-rolled cigarettes (which outsell cigarettes by a ratio of 8:1), are the most popular tobacco product used in India comprising 48% of the tobacco market. Chewing tobacco comes next at 38% followed by cigarettes at 14%.

Shobha Shukla - CNS
The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) is the world’s first global public health and corporate accountability treaty and to date 177 countries are Parties to it. By signing and ratifying this treaty, these countries are committed to adopt a range of measures to reduce tobacco use, including increasing taxes on tobacco products, banning tobacco advertising, creating smokefree public and work places, implementing health warnings, combating illicit trade and, above all, preventing industry interference in influencing health policies.

Governments to industry: you’re not welcome
The global tobacco treaty negotiations concluded on 17th November 2012 after a week of Big Tobacco’s attempts to derail, distract, and intimidate 175 countries from strengthening lifesaving measures required by the public health treaty. Despite the industry’s underhanded tactics, governments made concrete progress. On the second day of the meetings, the ratifying countries kicked Big Tobacco and its front group representatives out of committee meetings after members of civil society, including Corporate Accountability International, exposed the lobbyists who infiltrated the meetings under the guise of "public badges.” Article 5.3 of the treaty expressly prohibits tobacco industry interference in public health policy, and thus, their presence in the meetings.

[Hindi]Today government delegates from across the world adopted the illicit trade protocol of the global tobacco treaty – the world’s first public health and corporate accountability treaty - but not without a fight from Big Tobacco. In the lead up to the Seoul negotiations, the World Health Organization, which administers the treaty, deemed the tobacco industry’s interference in these negotiations and the implementation of the treaty as the single greatest threat to its success. But, despite continued pressure tactics from the industry, it is commendable that illicit tobacco trade protocol was adopted on the first day of the negotiations.

The Smokeless Tobacco Association, the All India Kattha Factories Association and the Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Co-operative Ltd have suddenly assumed the responsibility to inform people about the relative merits of gutkha over cigarettes. Their bold and blatant advertisement splashed in prominent newspapers is part of a country-wide campaign in an apparent retaliation to the ban on gutkha (tobacco laced pan masala), currently effective in 14 states of India. It wickedly accuses the 14 states of treating cigarettes to be beneficial for health and. The advertisement questions if it is just and fair to ban gutkha and not cigarettes, and reads that:--(i) one pouch of gutkha contains 0.2gm of tobacco as opposed to 0.63gm of tobacco in one cigarette; (ii) cigarette has 4000 chemicals while smokeless tobacco has 3000 chemical; (iii) cigarette smoke affects the health of non-smokers while gutkha does not; (iv) ban on gutkha will render lakhs of shopkeepers and farmers without a livelihood.

[हिन्दी][English report card] [हिन्दी रिपोर्ट कार्ड] Youth participants of Rights and Responsibilities Summer Training Camp currently underway released a REPORT CARD on implementation of tobacco control, other health and development policies in Lucknow city. The report card monitors and analyzes neighbourhood localities in Lucknow on four priority areas: 1) tobacco control laws, 2) alcohol advertising, 3) sanitation, hygiene and waste management, 4) chewing gums.

On this World No Tobacco Day (WNDT 2012) it would be worthwhile to remember that ‘tobacco products are the only legally available products that can kill up to one half of their regular users if consumed as recommended by the manufacturer.’ The International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (the Union), recognizes that, “With its formidable economic and political resources, the tobacco industry is fighting to prevent passage of new tobacco control laws and policies around the world. Article 5.3 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control calls for parties to the treaty to resist these efforts to undermine public health and continue the spiralling pandemic of tobacco-related disease.”

Photo credit: Shobha Shukla-CNS

Jyoti (name changed) hails from rural Uttar Pradesh which has a high prevalence rate of smokeless tobacco. Two years ago she became addicted to paan masala (a popular form of chewing tobacco) of a particular brand, under the influence of her friends. She began with one or two pouches a day, but the number quickly increased to 25. With one pouch costing one rupee (less than 2 cents) she had to cook stories to get money from her parents for this. She says, “I would ask them for money to buy eats and spend it on tobacco. I would eat outside the house, never in front of my parents. Then I would brush my teeth.” Eating tobacco put her on a high giving her momentary respite from the perpetual tension in the family. Her own marriage had broken and her father ill treated her mother. At the end of one year she started having difficulty in opening her mouth fully—‘It was difficult for me to open my mouth to put my three fingers inside it.’

India currently holds the dubious distinction of being the second largest producer and the second largest consumer of tobacco in the world. Not a particularly dignified title, considering that tobacco kills half of its dedicated users prematurely in their productive years! According to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey-2010, 47.9% of males and 20.3% of females currently use tobacco in some form in India. Globally, smoking prevalence is declining in developed nations while it is on the rise in developing countries. India is currently on an upward swing both in terms of tobacco use and mortality thereof.

[हिंदी] Although since 1st December 2011, all tobacco packs sold in India must be carrying stronger and more effective pictorial health warnings as per the new notification issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, vide Gazette of India notification (dated 27 May 2011), as per the Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003 (COTPA 2003), many tobacco packets sold in Lucknow are NOT carrying these new powerful warnings, rather have the old warning labels.

Tobacco giants, who always put profit ahead of lives and health, are invoking investor-state dispute mechanisms in bilateral investment agreements to challenge moves of governments which are aimed at controlling the widespread use of tobacco products. This scary development highlights the dangers of signing trade or investment treaties which could give corporations the right to sue governments over legitimate health or other public interest regulations.

Better Late Than Never: Green signal to new stronger pictorial warnings on tobacco products

Although 1.5 years late in India - pictorial warnings on tobacco products will be rotated as per law

New pictorial warnings:
to be implemented by 1 Dec 2011

This old adage aptly describes the Indian government order to change the existing pictorial warnings on cigarette and tobacco packs. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has issued a gazette notification on 27.5.2011 ordering for the replacement of the existing mild pictorial warnings with more grotesque, scary and effective ones with effect from 1st December 2011. This much needed order has not come a day early, after several deferments due to lack of political will on one hand and intense lobbying by the tobacco industry on the other hand. The existing pictorial warnings had come into being on May 31, 2009. So it will be after close to two and a half years that they will be rotated and replaced by scarier pictures of cancerous mouths/cheeks of men and women and diseased lungs of a man as per the Cigarette and other Tobacco Products Act, 2003.

Report: Philip Morris International's grabbing at straws
NEW YORK: As Philip Morris International (PMI) executives heralded the corporation's USD 27 billion revenues in 2010 at its annual shareholders' meeting, another not-so-welcome account of the corporation's activities was distributed to shareholders. Corporate Accountability International released a report called "Philip Morris International Exposed: Alternative Annual Report," documenting the human toll of PMI's profits and the range of tactics employed to grease the wheels for such earnings – tactics ranging from hiding behind front groups to litigation and intimidation of national governments.