Thailand urged to intensify measures to combat smoking (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

18 November 1999
Bangkok Post

Thailand urged to intensify measures to combat smoking

 Call for new laws to outfox tobacco firms

 Aphaluck Bhatiasevi

 Thailand may have done well in advocating anti-smoking campaigns and
 legislation but a lot more still has to be done, an international meeting
on
 tobacco and health was told.

 At the conference organised here by the World Health Organisation, Dr
 Hathai Chitanondh, a leading anti-smoking activist, said Thailand would
 have to amend existing laws and pass new ones to keep up with new
 tactics of multinational tobacco companies.

 Instead of having only a pricing policy that imposed a ceiling on consumer
 goods prices, the Commerce Ministry should also fix a floor price for
 products harmful to health, he said.

 Dr Hathai was referring to a recent cigarette tax rise which, contrary to
 expectations, did not cause the prices of imported brands sold in
 Thailand to rise.

 But Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, the WHO director-general and former
 prime minister of Norway, pointed out that a tax increase was most
 effective in reducing the rate of tobacco consumption, particularly among
 young people.

 Besides amending laws, Dr Hathai said, the government should also
 provide more financial support to counter-advertisements and campaigns
 against smoking.

 "How can we compete with the tobacco manufacturers when the
 Ministry of Public Health gets an annual budget of 10 million baht, which
 is less than the monthly earnings of the managing director of a major
 tobacco company?"Dr Hathai said more research was needed to
 convince people that smoking was hazardous to their health.

 Meanwhile, recent statistics showed that despite a decline in the overall
 rate of smoking among Thai women, smoking was increasing among
 teenage schoolgirls.

 The rate of smoking among girls in high schools and vocational schools
 was as high as 5%, according to Bung-on Ritthipakdee, of Action on
 Smoking and Health.

 The overall rate of smoking among Thai women was 2.6% this year, a
 drop of 0.2% from last year, according to Dr Varabhorn Bhumiswasdi,
 head of the Tobacco Consumption Control Institute, the Public Health
 Ministry.

 Quoting Mahidol University's latest survey of some 1,360 students in
 Bangkok, she said as many as 80% of girls surveyed, smoked foreign
 cigarettes. Ms Bung-on said most girls said they had started smoking
 because of peer pressure and that their decisions were made on values
 held about smoking and product promotion.