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QATAR will impose stronger warnings on all tobacco products soon. According to sources, all GCC countries will follow the practice of the World Health Organisation (WHO)’ Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) that they signed earlier this year.
“Qatar is working closely with the other GCC countries to work out the details, including customs, tax and labeling and might be able to implement the convention in early 2009,” sources said.
Bahrain announced on Tuesday that tobacco firms would be forced to print pictures of damaged organs, such as lungs and hearts, on cigarette packs in order to get entry into the GCC market. They would also have to make sure that 50 to 30% of a pack bear a larger warning statement on smoking hazards.
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Between 1999 and 2001, British American Tobacco, Philip Morris, and Japan Tobacco International executed Project Cerberus to develop a global voluntary regulatory regime as an alternative to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). They aimed to develop a global voluntary regulatory code to be overseen by an independent audit body and to focus attention on youth smoking prevention. The International Tobacco Products Marketing Standards announced in September 2001, however, did not have the independent audit body. Although the companies did not stop the FCTC, they continue to promote the International Tobacco Products Marketing Standards youth smoking prevention as an alternative to the FCTC. Public health civil society groups should help policymakers and governments understand the importance of not working with the tobacco industry.
Today at the European Parliament, officials are gathering for a Seminar on the Protection of Public Health from the Tobacco Industry. European interest in these issues is a welcome sign.
Tobacco is killing more than five million people around the world every year. That is why governments came together to negotiate the global tobacco treaty, formally known as the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). . . .
But the most serious threat to this groundbreaking treaty is the tobacco industry. Transnationals like Philip Morris International, British American Tobacco (BAT) and Japan Tobacco (JT) are using their political influence to weaken, delay and defeat tobacco control legislation around the world. Allies like Environmental Rights Action Nigeria are continuing to expose how Big Tobacco's political power has particularly devastating effects in developing countries.
Fortunately, the global tobacco treaty itself, in Article 5.3, safeguards against such tactics. Health advocates and public officials around the world have concluded that the tobacco industry should not have a seat at the table when public health policies are being drawn up, and the FCTC enshrines this concept in international law.
The Philippine College of Chest Physicians (PCCP) and, more so, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Alliance-Philippines (FCAP), have never endorsed any smoking cessation drug.
In the course of interviews with the media, upon being asked as to what drugs are available in the market, we naturally mention the drug that is the subject of the news report, since there are only two such drugs available in the Philippines. When we mention these drugs, it does not mean in any way that we are endorsing them, which is what the news story insinuates. . . .
By 2008, the obligations under Article 11 of the FCTC will fall due on the Philippines as a member state.
We likewise call on our local government executives to fully enforce the tobacco advertising ban which is provided for in RA 9211
By her own admission, FCAP executive director Dr. Maricar Limpin always mentions Champix, along with another drug, whenever she is asked by media what medications are available to those who want to kick the habit. When Champix was launched in late 2007, Dr. Limpin herself told Inquirer’s Tessa Salazar (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 10/6/07) that she would try it [Champix] on her patients “to see for herself if it really works.” It might be safe to say PCCP and FCAP did not actually endorse it, but it’s a very thin line that separates endorsement and actually prescribing it. I stand by my story.
GIL C. CABACUNGAN JR. reporter, Philippine Daily Inquirer
Voluntary Health Association of India (VHAI), Aparajita, which has been advocating on tobacco issues in the state to strengthen the implementation of Cigarette and other Tobacco products Act, 2003 and to prevent the families from health and economic burden due to tobacco consumption, made a brief presentation on the overview of tobacco control activities here recently.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr Shisir Ranjan Dash, project manager of VHAI-Aparajita, said: “After the national family health survey by the government of India in 1989-99 which says Orissa has the second highest rate in females chewing tobacco i.e. 34.9 per cent, after Mizoram (60.7 per cent), no further surveys have been made. We are dreading that the figure might have reached above 60 per cent.”
African Regional Meeting on Tobacco Control Building for Africa, is underway in Accra to brainstorm on strategies to curb the about 5.4 million global annual deaths related to tobacco.
The participants, which comprise 17 African countries and representatives from the US and Switzerland would be spending the next two days to discuss the tactics to reverse the findings of a report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) that the death toll per year would rise to eight million by 2030 with 80 per cent of the victims from Third World countries.
The consultation, which is a follow-up of a similar meeting in Geneva in February this year, would use the 2008 WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, as a reference point to identify the strengths and weaknesses of tobacco control in the Region.
California is recognized internationally as a trendsetter in discouraging the smoking of tobacco, but the state is having a hard time with its own country.
"California really is widely recognized as a leader around the world," said Matthew Kohrman, co-director of the Stanford Global Tobacco Free Research Initiative. "Other countries have picked up where California led, but right now, the United States is missing an opportunity to move things forward."
After more than three decades of scientific verification that smoking tobacco is bad for people's health, 45 million Americans smoke. About four million smokers live in California, which has the distinction of the second-lowest percentage of smokers in the country. Utah's 9.8% is lowest, followed by California's 13.5%.
Smoking costs California an estimated $8.6 billion in direct medical costs and $7.3 billion in lost productivity a year . . .
Julie Gerberding, director of CDC and a panelist at the San Francisco forum, agreed with Kohrman.
"This is a global treaty that lays out a framework for controlling tobacco at an international level, and we're one of the few countries left that hasn't ratified the treaty," Gerberding said.
Federal Capital Territory (FCT) minister, Dr. Modibbo Umar says Nigerians smoke six million sticks of tobacco daily and 195 million sticks in a month, stressing that his administration’s resolve to ban tobacco smoking in public places was informed by the debilitating effects of smoking on not only the smokers but on non-smokers in general.
"The statistic is disturbing," Umar said at the official declaration of the federal capital territory as smoke-free. . . .
He warned that as from June 1, it would constitute a criminal offence for anyone to smoke tobacco in public places in the territory.
UN: Of the more than 1.3 billion smokers alive today, about 650 million will eventually be killed by tobacco, warns a new U.N. report released here.
“Unlike most other causes of death, tobacco kills people during their most productive years,” adds the 19-page study by the U.N. Adhoc Inter-Agency Task Force on Tobacco Control. . . .
The report, which will go before the upcoming session of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), Jun. 30 - Jul. 25, points to a recent study that estimated 5.4 million deaths caused by smoking in 2005 alone.
A non-smoking campaign was formally launched in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), said Saturday the official news agency KCNA.
Various activities were conducted in the DPRK on the "World No-Tobacco Day" on May 31 this year, the KCNA said.
The country has banned all forms of advertisement, support and promotion of tobacco goods which may encourage smoking, it said.
THE Federal Government in accordnance with the call by the World Health Organisations (WHO) to ban all advertisments, promotions and sponsorships on tobacco product, has banned all forms of advertisement on tobacco products. . . .
Delivering WHO message to mark the 2008 World No Tobacco Day, with the theme, “Tobacco Free Youth” at a one - day School Debate on “Does Exposure to Tobacco Advertising Influence Young People to Become Regular Tobacco Users” organized by the Nigeria Heart Foundation (NHF) in collaboration with United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) in Lagos, Director of UNIC, Mr. Tetsuo Ohno explained that this year’s campaign focuses on the multi-billion dollar efforts of tobacco companies to attract young people to its addictive products through sophisticated marketing.
Quoting WHO, Ohno said “Recent studies prove that the more young people are exposed to tobacco advertising, the more likely they are to start smoking. Despite this, only 5 per cent of the world population is covered by comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.
Nicotine addiction is a chronic illness, and reducing the massive burden of death and disease associated with it will require matching individual treatments to patients, along with the necessary public health messages, concludes a Seminar in this week's edition of The Lancet. Future treatments in development include an antinicotine vaccine. And an accompanying Comment looks at the importance of a broad range of anti-tobacco strategies, and focuses on the importance of the implementation of The Framework for Tobacco Control.
In the Seminar, by Dr Dorothy Hatsukami, Tobacco Use Research Center, University of Minnesota, MN, USA and colleagues look at the startling death rates associated with smoking. There are around 1.2 billion smokers worldwide, more than half of whom will die from diseases caused by smoking. Roughly 5 million smokers die per year at present, though this could be 10 million per year by 2025 if present trends continue. . . .
The authors conclude: "Nicotine or tobacco addiction should be treated as a chronic disorder. Treatment can need persistent efforts to try to assist tobacco users in their attempts at quitting. Relapse should be seen as a probable event ...Treatment can improve these outcomes....The most crucial component of care is the actual delivery of such treatments."
In the accompanying Comment, Dr Kenneth Warner. School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, MI, USA, and Dr Judith Longstaff Mackay, Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, Hong Kong, China, discuss the importance of implementing The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), currently ratified by 154 countries. They conclude that the medical community needs to make treatment of tobacco dependence a high priority in everyday practice, and also to lobby governments - which are often conflicted by their own financial dependence on tobacco - to implement FCTC. They conclude: "Here is something simple, achievable, and unequivocally good that would relieve the suffering of literally millions of human beings."
The Federal Government has stopped the setting up of a tobacco manufacturing company, worth N9.6 trillion, in Osun, the minister of health, Prof. Adenike Grange, said in Abuja yesterday.
Grange said at the inauguration of an NGO, Coalition Against Tobacco (CAT), that the action was in line with the global fight against tobacco-related diseases and the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).
She noted Nigeria was a signatory to the FCTC treaty, conceived at the 53rd WHO Assembly in Geneva.
The Ministry of Health has planned to amend the national regulations regarding printing of health warnings on tobacco products to meet all the requirements of Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC).
According to official sources, with effect from January 1, 2009 the health warning on tobacco products will be required to be rotated on a 6-monthly basis.
This will mean that after six months the health warning on the tobacco packets will change. In addition to that, the new health warnings will also be printed on cigarette outers used in retail sale of the product, a provision that does not exist in national laws at present.
The ministry will ask various ministries and departments to further take measures to implement the national regulations that have been framed for Tobacco Control Sources said one of the major focuses of the FCTC is on ensuring that the tobacco products carry proper health warnings to warn intending consumers about the hazards of smoking.
The ban on smoking in public places in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja announced by the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) recently is cheering because of the dangers associated with tobacco-smoking. The ban on smoking in public places is commendable because it will save a lot of lives. This is buttressed by, among others, the recent revelation by Honourable Adefunmilayo Tejuosho, deputy speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly while inaugurating the Coalition Against Tobacco (Cat) in Lagos that an average of two people die daily from tobacco-related diseases in Lagos State alone. . . .
The 36 states of the federation on their part are expected to equally pass anti-smoking laws that would discourage smoking. The Lagos State Government is in the process of banning public smoking and it would do the country a lot of good if other states follow suit. The Federal Government must find the political will to implement the FCTA ban on public smoking because the syndrome of tobacco-related deaths is fast becoming a threat to the country.