[Intl-tobacco] Activists aim to stymie tobacco trade

[Robert Weissman]

Activists aim to stymie tobacco trade
ADVOCATES SEEK GLOBAL BAN ON CIGARETTE ADVERTISING.
by Renee Koury / rkoury@sjmercury.com or (415) 394-6878.
Source: San Jose Mercury-News, Thursday, 1/11/01

San Francisco anti-smoking advocates met with counterparts from seven
foreign nations Wednesday to plan how to combat what they say is an
aggressive push by tobacco companies to sell cigarettes abroad.

   Members of the San Francisco Tobacco Free Coalition have formed
partnerships with anti-smoking advocates from Hong Kong, Senegal, Sierra
Leone, Thailand, Togo, Uganda and Zimbabwe. The set of meetings this week
are an opportunity for both sides to exchange ideas on how to thwart the
influence of big tobacco in developing countries.

   The local and foreign activists are pushing for an eventual worldwide
ban on cigarette advertising and tough measures against smuggling
cigarettes. The World Health Organization is crafting a global treaty on
smoking that might include those measures.

   Advertisements promoting the proposed global treaty will air on
television soon, activists said.

   ``Cigarettes shouldn't be a normal trade item that can easily be sold
in other nations,'' said Sarah He, an organizer with San Francisco's
Chinese Progressive Association. ``This is actually a drug. It kills when
you use it.  And they target youth here and in other countries because
they want a new generation of smokers.''

   Philip Morris and other tobacco companies have consistently denied they
gear their advertising toward youths, saying they simply want smokers to
switch to their products.

   The activists say tobacco companies, facing dozens of lawsuits and
tough restrictions on advertising in the United States, have begun to more
actively push their products abroad, where laws often are more lax and
smuggling is more prevalent.

Gifts for smokers

Several of the foreign advocates said cigarette companies entice people
with T-shirts, caps, handbags, clocks and watches emblazoned with their
logos to promote their products.

   ``Many people don't know that they are wearing a Marlboro T-shirt,''
said Pischalong Tongsay, from Thailand. ``The cigarette companies say if
you buy one they give you another one free. Or they give it with a 50
percent discount.  People buy it because it looks cool. Some of them don't
even smoke. They don't even know it's advertising cigarettes.''

   Tongsay is working on anti-smoking strategies with San Francisco's
Literacy for Environmental Justice, an educational group based in the
Bayview-Hunters Point district.

   Horizons Unlimited, a Mission district youth organization that combats
drug abuse, is helping activists from Togo discourage smoking in a nation
where there are virtually no restrictions on tobacco. Even children are
allowed to puff, said Togo representative Thomas Lero Tchassao, who leads
a volunteer anti-smoking group.

Geared to soccer teams

 ``Tobacco companies support most of the soccer teams,'' Tchassao said
through an interpreter. ``All the players smoke a cigarette before the
game. The message in the commercials is, `This is how Western civilized
people live. If you want to be modern, if you want to be a liberated
woman, you should smoke.' ''

   The organizations exchanged ideas not only using discussion, but also
with movies and hard data showing the success of anti-smoking efforts.

   Marcus Yu, executive director of the Hong Kong Council on Smoking and
Health, provided a film made by popular teenage movie stars in Hong Kong
that tells the story of a family in which the parents are heavy smokers.

   In exchange, the local Chinese Progressive Association provided data
showing that California restaurants are thriving in spite of a smoking ban
in eateries.  Yu hopes to use it to toughen anti-smoking laws in Hong
Kong.

   The San Francisco coalition sponsors the international anti-smoking
exchange with funds from the state's tobacco tax initiative, which will
pump $779,000 this year into San Francisco anti-tobacco efforts.

   ``This is a very important program,'' the coalition's Susana Hennessey
said.  ``American tobacco companies are among the largest in the world and
its brands are popular. This gives a sense of solidarity with others that
people's struggles against tobacco are going on here and around the
world.''