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• Guatemala's Congress Takes Action to Save Lives By Approving Strong Smoke-free Legislation 

WASHINGTON, Nov. 26 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Guatemala's Congress on November 24, 2008, approved sweeping smoke-free legislation requiring that indoor workplaces and public places, including restaurants and bars, be 100 percent smoke-free. This legislation is a major step forward in protecting the health of Guatemala's 13 million residents and workers from the deadly effects of secondhand smoke and adds momentum to the growing smoke-free movement in Latin America and the world. . . .

If signed into law, this legislation would place Guatemala among the ranks of leading smoke-free jurisdictions in the world. It prohibits smoking in enclosed public places, work places and all modes of public transport. We urge President Alvaro Colom to sign the legislation immediately and start the clock ticking on the sixty days before it takes effect under Guatemalan law. We also urge the Ministry of Health to write strong regulations and immediately begin preparations for implementing the law so that Guatemala may join its Latin American neighbors in addressing the tobacco epidemic.

In Latin America, Guatemala joins Uruguay, Panama, Mexico, and five Argentinean provinces in having strong smoke-free laws.

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• Big Tobacco’s Attempts to Derail the Global Tobacco Treaty: Cases from Battleground Countries (PDF) 

Just over ten years ago, the tobacco industry still denied that its products are addictive and harmful to people’s health. The landscape for Big Tobacco has changed dramatically in the past decade. The global tobacco treaty, which took effect earlier this year, gives the international community tools to stand up to tobacco giants, decrease global addiction rates, and reverse the tobacco epidemic. Formally known as the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), the treaty is a major step for public health and a huge blow to Big Tobacco.

The global tobacco treaty bans tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, and insulates public health policy from interference by tobacco corporations. The treaty’s advertising ban means an end to some of the tobacco industry’s most effective and deadly tactics, like Philip Morris/Altria’s Marlboro Man, in countries that ratify. While Philip Morris/Altria, British American Tobacco (BAT) and Japan Tobacco International (JTI) continue to aggressively target developing countries to expand markets for their products, the tobacco giants are renewing their efforts to derail the treaty process in countries around the world.

The role of the United States in the global tobacco treaty stands in stark contrast to the majority of the world’s countries. The Bush Administration's decision to sign the global tobacco treaty with great fanfare in May 2004 appears to have been one in a series of public relations maneuvers to gain positive recognition while working to undermine the world's first public health treaty. Throughout the WHO FCTC negotiating process, the US government took positions that would dilute the treaty. The US opposed the advertising ban, and even opposed excluding the tobacco industry from public health policymaking. The purpose of this report is to make public a few salient examples of tobacco industry interference and to provide new information to the public about how tobacco corporations are currently meddling with health policy around the world. The report highlights one success story in overcoming corporate interference and gives an overview of two cases from battleground countries that represent a breadth of tactics currently being employed by the tobacco industry to derail the treaty process. . . .

Thailand’s case stands out as an impressive example of a developing country successfully overcoming years of powerful tobacco industry interference in health policy. In Nigeria, Big Tobacco is using its economic muscle to try to keep treaty ratification off the table for discussion by manipulating media coverage and influencing government agencies.

Guatemala’s current situation exemplifies the need for Article 5.3 of the WHO FCTC— requiring parties to the treaty to protect public health policy from industry interference— and the importance of being vigilant to interference throughout the implementation process. The case of Guatemala also illustrates a new variation of old tobacco industry tricks, where Big Tobacco tries to pull the wool over policymakers’ eyes by advocating “regulation” while drafting legislation that actually weakens or conflicts with the tobacco treaty.

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• Tobacco Companies Defeat Bid to Revive Suits by Three Nations 

Philip Morris Cos. and other cigarette makers won the final round in lawsuits by Guatemala, Nicaragua and Ukraine, as the U.S. Supreme Court turned aside an appeal by the three nations.

The suits sought to recoup the costs of treating millions of sick smokers under the national health care programs in those countries. A federal appeals court in Washington threw out the complaints in May.

U.S. judges have uniformly rejected tobacco lawsuits by foreign governments, generally concluding that any losses suffered by public treasuries are too tangental to the alleged wrongdoing to be addressed by a court. . . The case is Guatemala v. Tobacco Institute, 01-338.

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• Philip Morris, Others Win Dismissal of Tobacco Suits (Update3) 

A federal appeals court threw out racketeering claims by labor unions against Philip Morris Cos. and other U.S. cigarette makers, and dismissed a separate case against the industry by three foreign nations.

Tobacco analysts said the ruling may cast doubt on a U.S. Justice Department suit that seeks hundreds of billions of dollars in damages.

``We consider the news extremely positive and a significant legal victory for the tobacco industry,'' said David Adelman, a tobacco analyst with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.

Some experts disagreed, arguing that today's ruling has no bearing on the merits of the racketeering charges made by the government.

The issue in today's ruling ``is completely unrelated to the government's case,'' said William Schultz, a former Justice Department official who supervised the U.S. case. ``The government is not seeking recovery of health-care costs'' in its racketeering allegations as were the unions, he said.

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• Federal Appeals Court Rejects Tobacco Suits By Foreign Governments and Union Health Funds 

The U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia also unanimously reversed a ruling by U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler that had kept alive several lawsuits filed by union labor health funds against the tobacco companies alleging Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) violations.

``This decision confirms that foreign governments have no greater legal rights in American courts than U.S. litigants, and it sends a clear message that these cases have no place in the U.S. court system,'' said Steven Rissman, Philip Morris senior assistant general counsel. . .

In the case of the health funds, the Court found that, in addition to suffering no direct injury, ``insurers are hard pressed to demonstrate financial harm flowing from the tobacco industry's alleged wrongdoing because they possess information that would have indicated a need to collect higher premiums from smokers'' and that, ``moreover, the insurers have likely already passed the costs on to the directly injured (smokers) through higher premiums.'' . .

``This decision demonstrates that efforts by plaintiffs' attorneys to travel the globe in an attempt to convince foreign governments to file suits against the tobacco industry in the United States will be futile,'' said Rissman. . .

``It's time for these countries to realize they are being led down a primrose path by plaintiffs' lawyers who are acting like door-to-door lawsuit salesmen, promising results they cannot deliver,'' said Rissman.

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