Tobacco thrives outside the U.S. (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

Tobacco thrives outside the U.S.
Antismoking advocates in other countries working to combat ads, addiction
by COX NEWS SERVICE 
Date: Sunday, 7/18/99

ATLANTA Big Tobacco's not so big anymore, now is it? Not with all these
lawsuits and the billboard-banning, antismoking fervor smoldering across
America.

No problem. There's always Hungary. And Zimbabwe.

And India. And Nicaragua.

In short, the rest of the world.

''I rather naughtily like to remind my American colleagues that 96 percent
of the world is not America,'' said David Simpson, the director of the
International Agency on Tobacco and Health in London. ''There is an
enormous market out there, from Asia to Africa to South America, that
still have low smoking rates.'' Simpson would very much like the rest of
the world not to emulate America and the United Kingdom when it comes to
smoking. And lung cancer. And emphysema. And strokes.

Should worldwide smoking trends and aggressive cigarette marketing
continue at current rates, a pandemic will unfold to make AIDS pale by
comparison, say advocates and educators. By the year 2030, some 10 million
people worldwide will die annually from tobacco use -- three times as many
as today. Of those deaths, 70 percent will occur in developing countries.

''It will be a pandemic unlike anything in the history of the world,''
said John Seffrin, the CEO of the American Cancer Society.  ''Who pays? It
will be of such enormous proportions, it will have to be resolved on a
global stage.''

 IN THE PAST 10 years, lung cancer surpassed stomach cancer as the world's
leading fatal cancer, said Dr. Michael Thun, an American Cancer Society
epidemiologist. Lung cancer is on the rise in southern Europe, Japan, Asia
and developing countries. ''The cycle is repeating itself like clockwork
all over the world,'' Thun said.

That cycle, Thun said, goes something like this: International tobacco
companies buy controlling interest in a country's own national tobacco
firms, then saturate the country with advertisements extolling the virtues
of smoking Western cigarettes -- wealth, women and fast cars.

Then come sponsorships of sports teams, auto races, rock concerts and
discos. Forty years down the line come the lung cancer and other
tobacco-related health statistics, first for men, then for women.

China is often held up as the country of impending doom. With almost
one-quarter of the world's population, it smokes one-third of the world's
cigarettes.

More people light up in China every day than wake up in the United States.
''In 25 years, we predict China will have 1 million lung cancer deaths per
year. It's unthinkable,'' said Seffrin. By comparison, some 160,000
Americans died of lung cancer last year. Currently, 400,000 American
deaths -- one in five -- are attributed to tobacco use. Lung cancer became
the leading cause of cancer deaths of American women in 1987. The U.S.
health-care cost for treating tobacco users was $50 billion in 1993.

Advocates from more than 100 nations have called upon governments to pass
laws restricting cigarette advertising and sales to minors. They also
learned from successful antismoking campaigns, and exchanged anecdotes of
their powerful enemies: Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, and BAT, the British
American Tobacco company.

Pamphil Kweyuh of Kenya rolled a video showing African television
commercials for cigarettes. ''See that convertible?'' he said, pointing to
the sleek, white car occupied by a glamorous couple. ''There's probably
three cars like that in all of Kenya.''

In Bombay, Marlboro swooped in about two years ago, said Viji Venkatesh of
India's Cancer Patients Aid Association. It has become the favorite brand,
even beating out the traditional bidis, which are hand-rolled with
flavored tobacco flakes. ''It's American, it's freedom, it's wealth. I
think the cigarette companies are blatantly targeting that view,'' she
said. ''And we have absolutely no government support in terms of laws or
prevention. Right outside schools we have little stalls selling
cigarettes.''

But some nations' antismoking groups have made considerable progress in
lobbying for tobacco controls. South Africa's package warning, ''Smoking
Can Kill You,'' is one of eight rotating messages. The packages also refer
people to a toll-free phone number for addiction help. ''We modeled the
warnings after Australia and New Zealand,'' said Yussuf Saloojee, the
executive director of the National Council Against Smoking. ''Your
(American) health warnings on cigarettes are the worst. They're vague,
they're small and . . . they don't present people with a way to overcome
the danger.''

South Africa also increased taxes on cigarettes, nearly tripling the
price; sales dropped 20 percent.

''People ask why Africa even bothers with tobacco control when it has most
of the AIDS deaths in the world, and malaria, TB and infant
mortality,''says Saloojee. ''But if we don't deal with it now, the future
of Africa is not only the diseases of poverty but the disease of the
Westernization.''

The World Health Organization has plans to enact a worldwide tobacco
treaty by 2003. The plan would increase taxes on tobacco products and
restrict marketing and advertising to make it more difficult for tobacco
companies to do business around the world.