[Intl-tobacco] TFK Statement on US Executive Order

[Robert Weissman]

For Immediate Release
Contact: Joel Spivak/Vince Willmore
202-296-5469
January 19, 2000

Statement By Matthew L. Myers, President
CAMPAIGN FOR TOBACCO-FREE KIDS
Re: President Clinton Orders Federal Government Not To Promote Tobacco
Products Overseas

Washington, D.C. (January 19, 2001) –President Clinton’s executive order
prohibiting the federal government from promoting the sale or export of
manufactured tobacco products sets a standard for the incoming Bush
administration to follow and advance. It is imperative that the United
States continues to take the lead in promoting policies that discourage the
worldwide use of tobacco, which currently addicts millions of children and
ravages populations globally with the scourge of tobacco-caused disease.

The magnitude of the global tobacco epidemic demands the same kind of
leadership from the United States that our government has provided
domestically.  As smoking rates have declined in the U.S. and other Western
nations, they have exploded in the rest of the world as the tobacco
companies have sought new markets and new customers for their deadly
products.  Already, tobacco use kills about four million people worldwide
every year.  Based on current trends, the World Health Organization predicts
that tobacco will kill ten million people per year by 2030, with 70 percent
of those deaths occurring in developing countries.  In fact, more people
worldwide are expected to die from tobacco-related illness over the next 30
years than from AIDS, automobile accidents, maternal mortality, homicide and
suicide combined.

The leadership of the world’s most powerful nation is critical to addressing
this global crisis. The stakes are enormous.  If the incoming administration
fails to continue and build on the policies outlined in President Clinton’s
executive order, it will undermine efforts to contain the tobacco epidemic
in the rest of the world and could even impede domestic progress.  There is
already too much devastation to children and families around the world from
tobacco addiction and disease. The incoming administration has a
responsibility to see to it that the United States does everything possible
to keep tobacco addiction from spreading any further.