"Stop Aiding Tobacco" Says US Cable (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

                          May 14, 1998
 Cable Asks U.S. Embassies
 To Stop Aiding Tobacco Firms

 By CARLA ANNE ROBBINS and TARA PARKER-POPE

 Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

 WASHINGTON -- The U.S. is mounting a new push to
 have its embassies stop helping American tobacco
 companies overseas, lending the government's weight to
 the mounting war on smoking around the world.

 A State Department cable addressed to all American
 embassies bars them from "promoting" the sale or export
 of tobacco or tobacco products overseas. The cable,
 dated Feb. 14, 1998 and obtained by The Wall Street
 Journal, also directs U.S. diplomatic posts to support,
 rather than challenge, local antismoking laws and
 regulations that may reduce U.S. tobacco company
 sales, as long as they are applied "in a nondiscriminatory
 manner to both imported and domestic tobacco."

                      International public-health
                      officials said the State
                      Department cable would
                      boost their efforts to
                      promote antismoking
                      policies, especially to
                      governments in the
                      developing world.
                      "American diplomatic posts
 have not been a place where we previously thought to
 look for assistance. . . . Now with that [cable] in hand,
 we can," said Neil Collishaw, acting chief of the tobacco
 health unit at the United Nations World Health
 Organization in Geneva.

 More Restrictions

 In more bad news for the tobacco industry, the
 European Parliament Wednesday approved a near-total
 ban on tobacco advertising despite frenzied last-minute
 lobbying by cigarette companies, the advertising
 industry and media interests.

 The restrictions, which had been widely expected, will
 be phased in over an eight-year period. They will
 prohibit tobacco ads on billboards, in newspapers and
 magazines; prohibit tobacco sponsorship of sporting
 events; and even prevent tobacco companies from
 putting logos on nontobacco products, including clothing.

 U.S. tobacco companies, counting on expanding
 overseas markets to make up for slack sales at home,
 played down the significance of the State Department
 cable, saying it still ensured their protection from trade
 discrimination. "The U.S. government is still committed
 to seeking fair treatment for all U.S. exports," said Owen
 Smith, vice president and deputy general counsel for
 Philip Morris Cos.

 At the same time, tobacco company officials
 acknowledged increasingly chilly relations with U.S.
 embassies overseas -- a far cry from the 1980s and
 early 1990s when U.S. diplomats championed tobacco
 as a high-cash U.S. export. Even before the cable, "the
 days of American ambassadors embracing Joe Camel
 were long over," said a top U.S. official.

 Nevertheless, until now there have been no written rules
 telling U.S. diplomats overseas how to handle tobacco
 companies on issues ranging from sales promotion to
 trade cases. The new instructions explicitly bar U.S.
 ambassadors and embassy staff from attending or
 supporting tobacco-related "receptions, trade
 promotions, or any events . . . where their attendance
 could be construed as United States government
 support."

 The State Department cable was the result of an
 interagency review of U.S. tobacco policies overseas,
 begun after last year's proposed tobacco settlement.
 The cable is also a codification of a little-noted
 amendment to last year's Commerce-State-Justice
 appropriations legislation championed by Democratic
 Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas.

 'Good Foreign Policy'

 "The point of the cable is that advancing public health is
 good foreign policy," said Michael Eriksen, director of
 the Office on Smoking and Health at the Centers for
 Disease Control.

 Officials said the cable also reflects a more nuanced
 approach to tobacco trade cases overseas. In particular,
 officials point to a paragraph in the cable directing U.S.
 posts to refer any suspected cases of trade
 discrimination back to Washington for review not only
 by the U.S. trade representative but also "health and
 other appropriate agencies."

 In 1993, representatives from the Department of Health
 and Human Services have had a seat on two key U.S.
 Trade Representative committees reviewing tobacco
 cases. Their influence on trade decisions has grown in
 recent years, officials say.

 As an example of that changed approach, officials say
 the Clinton administration late last year refused to
 challenge a Thai government regulation requiring
 cigarette companies to disclose their brand-specific
 ingredients.

 The issue has been brewing since 1992. And in 1995,
 then-U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor
 indicated that he considered the regulation a violation of
 the cigarette companies' intellectual-property rights.
 That position changed last year -- the result of intense
 lobbying by U.S. health officials.

 Questioning Thais

 The U.S. embassy in Bangkok recently questioned the
 Thai government closely to ensure that any information
 disclosed is not used to benefit the Thai state tobacco
 monopoly. "We determined that there was a good health
 reason for [the Thais] to want that information," says a
 U.S. trade official.

 John Singleton, director of corporate communications
 for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., said he expected "that
 U.S. embassies are going to be cautious in how they
 handle tobacco issues." At the same time, he said, his
 company is continuing to receive needed support in
 winning customs clearances and approvals.

 Philip Morris's Mr. Smith said the U.S. government is
 also continuing to defend the tobacco companies from
 "blatant" trade discrimination. The U.S. embassy in
 Thailand recently helped Philip Morris after the state
 tobacco monopoly began selling "Marble" cigarettes
 with packaging modeled after the U.S. company's red
 and white Marlboro pack.

 While tobacco companies have focused intensively on
 increasing their share of emerging markets in Asia and
 Eastern Europe, the new European ad ban is still a major
 setback. The tobacco companies currently spend an
 estimated $1 billion a year on marketing in the 15
 European countries covered by the ban.

 "There's no magic way to get out of this difficult bind, but
 we won't give up," said Michael Prideaux, spokesman
 for B.A.T Industries PLC, the world's second-largest
 tobacco company, which owns Brown & Williamson
 Co. in the U.S. He added that the industry will appeal
 the decision to the European Court of Justice, and
 possibly in the courts of member states.


 -- Ernest Beck and Julie Wolf contributed to this
 article. 


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