[Intl-tobacco] Pakistan: Paying Lip Service to Anti-Tobacco Pledge (fwd)

[Robert Weissman]

Title: HEALTH-PAKISTAN: Paying Lip Service to Anti-Tobacco Pledge

By Nadeem Iqbal

ISLAMABAD, Jun 1 (IPS) - Accused by health activists of inducing children
to smoke, Pakistan's state-run television is seeking approval from the
highest level for continuing with cigarette advertising that it was
ordered to stop six years ago.

Indeed, the government's Pakistan Television Corporation (PTV), which
never heeded a 1994 ruling by the Federal Ombudsman banning it from
carrying tobacco spots, may actually have succeeded in this.

Officials in the federal Law Ministry who did not want to be identified
told IPS that President Rafiq Tarar overturned the ombudsman's ruling
earlier this year.

The ombudsman, which listens to citizen complaints against government
agencies, had banned tobacco advertising on PTV, agreeing with a public
interest petition that this could encourage children to smoke.

According to the Pakistan Pediatric Association, everyday more than 1,000
children between the age of six and 16 years, pick up the smoking habit.
It is estimated that more than a third of men and some four percent of
women in the country are smokers.

PTV, which earns a third of its revenue from tobacco advertising, had
appealed to then President Farooq Leghari. Appeals against ombudsman
rulings are sent by the president to the Law Ministry for its advice.

A PTV spokesman told IPS that it was in the television channel's
''commercial interest'' to accept cigarette advertising. Anti- smoking
campaigners too could buy time on PTV, he added.

Pakistan's anti-smoking campaigners argue that PTV may be a business
company, but it is owned by the government which has a responsibility to
protect the health of the people.

Health activists remind the government that Pakistan is also a signatory
to the World Health Assembly's resolutions calling on member states to
eliminate all direct and indirect advertising, promotion and sponsorship
of tobacco.

A Health Ministry official said that every year, the government spends
some 20,000 U.S. dollars on anti-smoking messages on PTV. But cigarette
companies spend millions of dollars annually on advertising.

PTV officials told IPS said that the channel has, in the past, buckled
under pressure from the powerful tobacco industry. They recalled how an
anti-tobacco spot prepared by PTV in the early 1990s was taken off air
under pressure from cigarette companies.

Those campaigning to take cigarette advertising off television got a shot
in the arm from a message on World Tobacco Day Wednesday by one of the
country's best-known sports stars.

In a statement, former national cricket team captain-turned- politician
Imran Khan urged sportspersons not to accept tobacco sponsorships.

''I have witnessed from close, the power and persuasiveness of tobacco
promotion,'' said Khan, who called for ''banning all kinds of
advertisements, promotion and sports sponsorships'' by tobacco companies.

But anti-tobacco campaigners are up against the immense clout of cigarette
companies that spend millions of dollar annually to promote smoking in
Pakistan.

According to the prestigious advertising magazine 'Age', the Lakson
Tobacco Company spent an astounding 6.4 million dollars on publicity
during 1998, making it the third largest business advertiser in Pakistan
that year.

Anti-tobacco campaigners accuse the government of being swayed by the
tobacco industry. According to independent estimates, the Pakistani
government collected some 311 million dollars as tobacco tax in 1990,
slightly more than a tenth of the government's total revenue earnings that
year.

Every year, tobacco companies sell 50 billion sticks in the country. This
does not include some 10 billion cigarettes that are either spurious
brands or smuggled into Pakistan. Cigarette production went up from 29.9
billion sticks a decade ago, to 48.21 billion cigarettes in 1997-98.

The tobacco industry argues that it not only swells the government's
coffers, but is a big employer. An estimated 80,000 people are engaged in
tobacco production and marketing.

Tobacco farms occupy 0.2 percent of the country's irrigated land. In
1995-96, the tobacco crop was grown on some 46,100 hectares with a total
production of 79,900 tonnes.

The government's concern about the health risks of tobacco use has so far
produced only a barely legible mandatory warning on cigarette packs that
''smoking is injurious to health'', say the critics.

They are also unhappy with the fact that the higher law courts have tended
to rule in favour of the tobacco industry. In early 1997, the Lahore High
Court, which is the country's second highest, had put some curbs on the
tobacco industry advertising on radio and television.

But six months later, the court's ruling, on a petition of the Pakistan
Chest Foundation and Anti-Tuberculosis Association, was overturned by a
larger bench of the same court on appeal by tobacco companies.

In 1994, the country's top court had dismissed an appeal to ban cigarette
advertising that was made on the ground of violation of human rights.
(END/IPS/ap-he/ni/mu/00)