Question of the Month - November 2002

[Anna White]

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Question of the Month - November 2002
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Dear Friends,

On September 10, 2002, we asked all of you to share stories about people
you know who have been killed, or seriously harmed, by tobacco. The very
next day, terrorists crashed four planes in the U.S., instantly killing
3,000 people. It was a tragedy of immense proportion. People, in shocked
horror, watched the World Trade Center towers fall again and again and
again on their television screens. Later, when the faces, names, and
stories of the victims started surfacing, the full, heartwrenching scope
of the loss began to settle in. To their families, each victim had been
the center of the world.

Understandably, many people's minds were distracted from tobacco control
that month, and few people responded to our call for stories about
tobacco victims. But since September 11, 2001, over 5 million people
have been killed worldwide by tobacco, according to World Health
Organization estimates -- that is about 13,500 daily, or the equivalent
of 47 full Boeing 757-300 jet airplanes* crashing EACH & EVERY DAY. This
month, we would like to renew our call for the stories of these victims.

NOVEMBER'S QUESTION: Do you know anyone who has been killed, or
seriously maimed, by tobacco? If so, please send us:

     1. Name, Age, Country
     2. Length of time they smoked (or were exposed to tobacco
     smoke pollution)
     3. Name of the cigarette brand they smoked (if known)
     4. A paragraph about the person. Say whatever you like.

We would like to collect as many examples as possible from around the
world, so feel free to send more than one, and to forward this appeal to
your friends, family, and colleagues.

Also, to maximize the emotional impact of this project, please send us a
photo of the person, if you have one. We will post all stories and
photos at: http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/globaltoll.html

The photos and stories we collect might be used for a variety of
purposes.  Some could be incorporated into presentations to emphasize
the personal scale of the global tobacco epidemic. Examples from your
partner's country could be used to garner local media coverage on
tobacco's global terror. An assortment of examples from around the world
could be put on public display and used to bolster local/global tobacco
control advocacy efforts. The photos, names, and countries of victims
could be mounted on posters and carried during demonstrations to demand
tough global controls on Big Tobacco.

As always, please share your examples with your global partner, if you
have one, and send a copy to Essential Action. Deadline: MONDAY,
DECEMBER 2, 2002.

See below for some additional reflections on this topic.

Thanks in advance for all examples that you can send us,
Anna

Global Partnerships for Tobacco Control
Essential Action
P.O. Box 19405
Washington, DC 20036
Tel: +1 202-387-8030
Fax: +1 202-234-5176
Email: awhite@essential.org
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco

* Boeing 757-300, maximum passengers = 289


SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY'S GLOBAL HUMAN TOLL

A lot of people have fallen for the tobacco industry's rhetoric that it
is a model of "corporate responsibility." After all, who dares criticize
Philip Morris for distributing Milkbones to police dogs at Ground Zero?
Or for donating $10 million to the 9/11 relief efforts? No doubt
individuals within Philip Morris were genuinely devastated by the
tragedy and wanted to do something about it.  They're human, after all.
The corporation is not, however, and has used its generosity following
9/11 to polish its image.

Corporate "philanthropy" serves to silence opposition and obscure
unsavory facts. Even we who work on tobacco control, even WE do not
fully comprehend the scope of the global tobacco tragedy, or the
heartless nature of the industry behind it.  No doubt because the
tobacco industry has succeeded in normalizing its presence in our
societies, even among us.

The facts: The tobacco industry knows that 50% of smokers die
prematurely and that the rest often suffer from serious, debilitating
disease. Yet it continues to do all it can to increase the number of
smokers worldwide. It is an industry that stealthily targets people and
consciously kills them, in the process of pursuing ever-increasing
profit. Whether in the name of religion, politics, or profit, it does
not matter, the killing of innocent human life is the same. Human serial
killers go to jail. Corporate serial killers wine and dine with
Presidents.

As a recent Massachussetts Tobacco Control Program television spot,
featuring a plane crashing and a related statistic about the number of
Americans who are killed daily by the tobacco industry, asks, "Where's
the outrage?!" Indeed, it is time to get outraged. Much more outraged.

On September 19, 2002, Geoffrey Bible, CEO of Philip Morris, addressed
the company's employees: "This is a disaster of historic proportion. The
toll in human terms is almost incomprehensible. But even in the darkest
times, the selflessness of our employeers is truly inspirational...We
will grieve for those who are lost, we will weep with those who are left
behind, and we will never forget."

But about the 5 million people the tobacco industry kills annually,
Bible and his successor Louis Camilleri are shamelessly silent.

All human life is sacred. On September 11, 2001, a group of people took
3,000 sacred lives.  That same day, a global industry took over 13,000,
as they had the day before and the day before that, and as they
continued to take every day thereafter. These lives did not perish in a
ball of fire, or even together. They were extinguished, one by one by
one, around the world, behind closed doors, bedridden at home or in the
hospital, in pain, on morphine, bodies like skeletons, faces gaunt, eyes
sunken, gasping for breath, all leaving loved ones behind.  Many
believing the industry's rhetoric to the end, that they and they alone
were at fault.

Yes, scattered around the world, each day 13,000 lives meet the same
fate. They die, and the tobacco industry must find another 13,000 to
take their place (and many more, if the industry is to continue
growing).

Maybe if everyone dying of lung cancer were to travel to one place, e.g.
in front of the Philip Morris headquarters, and die together, we would
see the collective tragedy for what it really is. Dramatic. Maybe if
newspapers printed a tobacco death index (number of people who died of
tobacco-related diseases worldwide the day before) next to Philip
Morris' stock index...Maybe if the photos and stories of all the people
killed by tobacco, even in just one city, were published on a monthly
basis in the Moscow Times, the Bangkok Post, the New York Times*...Maybe
then, we would really see the tobacco industry for what it is.

Imagine one person you love, who has died at the tobacco industry's
hands. Then, multiply that individual human tragedy by 5 million. Every
8 seconds someone is killed...in Pakistan...next in Togo...then in
Russia...then in the United States...then in Brazil...then in...and the
murders continue, every 8 seconds, every minute, every hour, every day,
every month, every year. That is tobacco's global carnage.

So, when you talk about transnational tobacco corporations like Philip
Morris, British American Tobacco, and Japan Tobacco International, call
them for what they are, but do not want to be called: tobacco
terrorists.

* A tobacco victims equivalent of: New York Times - Portraits of Grief -
Glimpses of some of the victims of the September 11 attacks
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/national/portraits/
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