[Intl-tobacco] Impt: Asian Nations Urge Total Ban on Cigarette Ads (fwd)

[Robert Weissman]

Asian Nations Urge Total Ban on Cigarette Ads
Source: Reuters, Friday, 4/6/01

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Health officials from eight Asian countries have
agreed to support a proposal to totally ban cigarette advertising, the
group said in a statement at the end of a two-day meeting on tobacco
control in Jakarta on Friday.

``On advertising, a total ban is proposed whether it is direct or indirect
advertising...,'' said the statement, signed by Sampoerno, head of
Indonesia's Drug and Food Monitoring Agency. The statement said the issue
would be discussed again at an intergovernmental meeting in Geneva in May.

The Jakarta meeting, organized under the auspices of the World Health
Organization (WHO), brought together representatives from Indonesia,
Thailand, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka.

Indonesian finance ministry officials said earlier that WHO had urged
countries represented at the meeting to cut cigarette consumption by
increasing excise taxes.

Sampoerno told Reuters that Indonesia should not avoid further rises in
excise taxes, as the country already had among the world's highest growth
rates for cigarette consumption.

However, cigarette manufacturers--among the biggest contributors to the
state coffers and among the biggest firms on the Jakarta Stock
Exchange--criticized the proposal.

``WHO perhaps does not want to understand about the trade-off between
cigarette-related diseases versus poverty-related diseases,'' said Eka
Darmajanto Kasih, chief financial officer with cigarette giant HM
Sampoerna.

Kasih urged health officials, including those from WHO, to visit cigarette
production centres in Indonesia to see how the industry provided earnings
for the lives of millions of people.