Pakistan Registers Rise in Smoking (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

‘Pakistan registers rise in consumption of cigarettes', The News,
Rawalpindi/Islamabad, July 19th 1999, on Pg 2

ISLAMABAD: With tobacco companies free to promote their products on
electronic and print media through false images of prestige, power, freedom
and luxury, Pakistan has registered a phenomenal increase in the production
and consumption of cigarettes during 1998-99.

According to the recent Economic Survey, the production of cigarettes has
increased to 38,119 billion sticks till March 1999 – an increase of around
three billion as compared to the corresponding period last year when it was
a little over 35 billion. This figure, however, does not reflect the
consumption of imported or smuggled cigarettes.

Anti-tobacco and health activists link the rise of cigarette consumption in
the country with companies' aggressive promotional campaigns aimed at
hooking news users. They said that the multinational tobacco companies are
now all out to expand their market base in the third world as a result of
greater resistance to and curbs on their unethical promotional activities in
the developed countries. "They are covering up for their decaying markets in
the West by selling more cigarettes in developing countries where
governments are still finding it hard to give up their addiction to
lucrative tobacco revenues," says Dr Zafar Mirza, executive coordinator of
The Network, a health advocacy group in Islamabad.

According to a report by International Organization of Consumers Unions (now
Consumers International), every tenth rupee that the government of Pakistan
spends comes from tobacco revenues. However, this figure does not include
the money the companies are pumping in to sponsor sports and other events.

The Pakistan Medical Research Council in one it surveys says that 54 per
cent of men and 20 per cent of women use some forms of tobacco on a regular
basis. But the most alarming figure was put forward by the Pakistan
Pediatrics Association in 1997 when it said that 1,000 to 1,2000 school
going children between the ages of 6 to 16 years take up smoking everyday.
"The Convention on the Rights of the Child requires the government to
introduce legislation to ban juvenile smoking, but so far the implementation
of convention has been snail-paced," commented a child rights activist.

Promotion of smoking and tobacco products is not illegal in Pakistan, and
cigarette manufacturers dole out big money for space on government- run
electronic media, newspapers and billboards. The tobacco commercials
boasting the power, freedom and style of smokers broke all records during
the recent World Cricket Cup when they bounced off the TV sets as quick as
runs and catches. Sources say that the PTV made around 28 million through
tobacco advertisements during the recent world cup.

Anti-tobacco groups are now seriously thinking about taking up the issue to
the highest policy-making level. The Network recently gathered a group of
people to initiate a discussion on ways to tackle the tobacco-advertising
blitz. Similar initiatives have already been taken by Pakistan Tuberculosis
and Cancer Societies and PANNAH.

The Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute of National Development (PIND)
launched a letter campaign against tobacco advertisements on May 31 this
year, coinciding with the World Anti-Tobacco Day. "Whether that be in a
glossy magazine or on the side of a sleek racing car, young people receive a
clear and constant message that smoking is glamorous, smoking is exciting,
smoking is mature, and smoking is a desirable way to behave," PIND's letter
to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said.

Although the health policy introduced by the present government in December
1997 considers smoking as one of the four causes of preventable deaths in
the country, there has been no effort to check the rising consumption of
cigarettes in the country. "Tobacco is the largest killer in the world.
Although Pakistan lacks authentic data on cigarette-related death and
disease, the rampant cases of cancers, heart attacks and other
tobacco-related illness only indicate the need for stricter laws for
promotion of cigarettes in the country," says Dr Mirza.

On the other hand, the government continues to indulge in contradictory
policies—Ministry of Health is running a half-hearted anti-smoking campaign
and Ministry of Commerce through its Pakistan Tobacco Board is patronizing
the industry and the tobacco growers. In fact, the nationalized commercial
banks (NCBs) are bound to dole out huge loans to tobacco companies for the
purchase of the crop under Leaf Voucher Scheme started in 1975. In 1994,
NCBs doled out Rs 434.14 million to tobacco companies, with largest share
going to the Pakistan Tobacco Company, a subsidiary of British American
Tobacco.

Against the backdrop of ongoing negotiation on a UN Convention on the issue,
the government of Pakistan and civil society needs to evolve a common
strategy that could feed into the important international undertaking. "The
health costs due to tobacco-related diseases are far more than what the
government generates in revenues through cigarette sales," said another
Islamabad-based anti-tobacco worker, adding if the big tobacco can cough up
billions of dollars in the United States to pay for health costs, why can't
they be forced to do the same in Pakistan.