Thailand: New Threats Rise In Anti-smoking Battle (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

RIGHTS-THAILAND:  NEW THREATS RISE IN ANTI-SMOKING BATTLE
        May 27, 1999
        
BANGKOK - Inter Press Service via NewsEdge Corporation : While waiting for
friends in front of a Bangkok shopping mall one evening, Nakarin
Duangnarathorn puffs on a cigarette.

"I have used cigarettes since I was 14," says the 17-year-old high school
student. "There is nothing wrong about smoking. It's also very easy to buy
cigarettes. They have never asked about my age when I buy them."


Like other smokers, Nakarin knows the habit is unhealthy: "I think I want
to quit, but as long as friends are still smoking, it is hard not to do
so."

Nakarin is among the growing ranks of Thai teenagers addicted to smoking,
despite local laws that try to discourage the habit by restricting sales
to minors and tobacco advertisements.

Now, health and development activists are calling attention to new dangers
in their anti-smoking campaign.

These include what they call more insidious threats in the form of shrewd
promotion efforts by tobacco manufacturers, such as Philip Morris Thailand
(Ltd), and beyond that, the privatization of the state tobacco enterprise
that would open up the sector to more manufacturers and sellers.

Activists fear these new trends will draw even more teens into smoking,
which the World Health Organization calls an epidemic and growing at rapid
rates in Asia.

"It is obvious that teenagers have become a new target group of some
cigarette companies," says Dr Prakit Watesatokij, secretary general of a
Bangkok-based NGO, Action on Smoking and Health.

In a recent survey on smoking patterns of Thai teenagers among 1,300
people aged 14-17, 38 percent of males and 20 percent of females said they
have tried smoking.

Of the respondents, 12 percents of males and 3 percent of females have
become addicted to smoking. Their favorite cigarette is the American brand
Marlboro (37 percent), with a local Krongthip a close second (33 percent).

The survey report also found media influence to be a strong factor among
the teenagers who smoke.

"They are aware of and own high level of awareness of products with
cigarette brand names on them. They are more familiar with western music
stars and cigarette company sponsored events. (This relationship held true
particularly for younger teenagers and males)," the report points out.

It also says that teenagers who smoke select the U.S. as the country where
they would like to spend a year. This same group are also more likely to
select Marlboro brand than a domestic one, the report adds.

Significantly, most of smoking teens said they can recall cigarette
advertising that caught their attention.

The implications of these results are partly why anti-smoking campaigners
this month denounced what ostensibly was a program by Philip Morris
(Thailand) Ltd.  to discourage smoking among youngsters, called "Under-18,
No tobacco. "

Philip Morris says this is part of its global effort to prevent tobacco
consumption among children, but critics say the new campaign is just a
marketing ploy.

In campaign brochures it distributes in many shops, the company asks
sellers to avoid selling tobacco products to those under 18. This practice
is already required under the provisions of Thailand's 1992 Tobacco
Control Act.

Philip Morris' materials also suggest that sellers ask for identification cards
from buyers of cigarettes if there is any doubt about their age.


But Dr Prakit says that Philip Morris' continued efforts to advertise and 
promote its products undercuts its campaign to discourage youth smoking. "
The company's attempt to promote its tobacco products have often violated the 
law," he adds.


For example, he says the company continues to promote at sales points by 
displaying product logos next to products in many shops.


It also uses indirect advertising by "brand stretching" -- displaying
logos on materials such as t-shirts or caps and sponsoring car races, critics 
say. "All of these are against the law," Prakit points out.


According to him, Philip Morris has requested rights to advertise and promote 
its products at sales points ever since it negotiated with the government to 
open the market to its product.


The company has also opposed a proposed law prohibiting cigarette-vending 
machines and a cigarette tax increase, prompting skeptics to question its 
commitment to discouraging youth smoking.


"It is shown that the company is not sincere in preventing tobacco 
consumption by minors," Prakit argues.


Thailand has for years been at war with foreign tobacco companies, which have 
put pressure to the government to open the market for their products in the 
guise of more open trade and trade reform.


However, the long-time resistance to this pressure might soon buckle due to 
economic reforms Thailand has had to commit under to under bail-out programs 
with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).


In the Thai government's letter of intent to the IMF dated Aug. 25, 1998, it 
included a plan to privatize the tobacco state enterprise.


This development prompted 14 U.S. House representatives and three senators to 
write a letter to Michel Camdessus, IMF managing director, opposing the plan.


"Whatever the merits of privatization of other sectors, tobacco represents
a grave public health menace and must be treated differently," said the 
letter. "Policies relating to tobacco should be guided by public-health 
considerations."


The letter also cited findings by professor Frank Chalounka of the University 
of Illinois, which says that "after the misguided U.S. pressure forced 
open markets in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Thailand, smoking rates rose by 
10 percent."


Prakit says the battle against the smoking habit is hard enough without this 
economic threat. The number of Thais who smoked three years ago stood at 11.2 
million, and this has grown by 100,000 a year since then.


        
        [Copyright 1999, Inter Press Service]