[Intl-tobacco] Scotland: Dewar promises tobacco ban (fwd)

[Robert Weissman]

Dewar promises tobacco ban
Source: BBC Online, Friday, 10/6/00

Scotland's first minister is promising to ban tobacco advertising, despite
a European Court ruling against such a move.

The ruling overturned a Europe-wide directive aimed at phasing out all
tobacco advertising and sponsorship by 2006.

However, while Donald Dewar says the court move will present difficulties,
he has told health officials that Labour will stand by its pledge to ban
tobacco promotion.


He delivered his uncompromising message to the General Assembly of the
World Medical Association, in Edinburgh.

Mr Dewar said: "Let there be no doubt, tobacco advertising will be banned
in Scotland.

"It is not a question of if, it is a matter of when.

"I know that we will encounter opposition on the way. That is to be
expected but it will not deter us.

"It is wrong that vast amounts of money are being spent promoting a
product that has such a damaging effect on public health."

Mr Dewar pointed out that with 13,000 Scots dying from smoking-related
illnesses each year, the executive must act decisively.

Acted illegally

The first minister said: "That is the same as the Edinburgh to Heathrow
shuttle crashing, with all lives lost, once a week, every week."

The ban was challenged by international tobacco companies and advertisers
in Germany.

The European Commission was found to have acted "outside its competence"
when it introduced a directive in 1998 to phase out all tobacco
advertising.

The director general of the Cancer Research Campaign, Professor Gordon
McVie, said that the ruling would cost "thousands of lives."