[Intl-tobacco] NYT: US Accused of Diluting FCTC

[Robert Weissman]

May 6, 2001
New York Times
U.S. Accused of Diluting a Global Pact to Limit Use of Tobacco
By ELIZABETH OLSON


GENEVA, May 5 — Negotiations for a global pact to curb tobacco use
stumbled this week, with major countries backing away from tougher
provisions and health campaigners charging that the Bush administration
was trying to water down the treaty.

Governments from more than 150 countries met here to work out the
provisions of a treaty that the World Health Organization is pushing to
stem the rising death toll around the world from tobacco-related
diseases. About 4 million people die yearly from such diseases, and the
number is expected to more than double to as many as 10 million people
over the next 30 years as smoking takes hold in countries like China.
To emphasize its concern about harm to adolescent health, the United
Nations health agency released a study on Friday that found 700 million
children breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke, mostly from relatives
smoking at home, which causes long-term health damage.

Despite a harmonious start last fall, this week the deliberations fell
into squabbling. The chairman of the talks, Celso Amorim, a Brazilian
diplomat, said no progress had been made on the treaty, which is supposed
to go into force in 2003, because countries were still hashing out their
positions on many contentious provisions.

Those included banning advertising and promotion of tobacco, regulating
labeling, clamping down on cigarette smuggling and barring smoking in
public places.

Antismoking activists charged the United States and Japan with siding
with tobacco multinationals by diluting treaty language designed to curb
the influences of the tobacco companies and their commercial reach, thus
undermining provisions that campaigners had thought were settled during
the first negotiating round last fall.

During last year's session, countries almost unanimously called for a
complete ban on cigarette advertising and promotion, including the
sponsoring of sports events like Formula One auto racing. Countries as
diverse as Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey and a tobacco grower like Brazil,
lined up behind the idea.

Now, however, the United States and other major countries like Japan
appear to be backpedaling.

Japan's government has a stake in Japan Tobacco, which bought R.J.
Reynolds's international tobacco business, and has not been a strong
supporter of the treaty.

The Americans have stopped short of supporting a total ban on advertising
and promotion, arguing that it would violate free-speech guarantees if
applied to the United States.

And the European Union's tough stance on an advertising ban took a
beating last fall when the European Court of Justice struck down such a
measure on grounds that it blocked free movement of goods and services.
But the most stinging criticism after this week's round of talks was
reserved for the United States, with some health campaigners going so far
as to urge the American delegation to drop out of the talks rather than
weaken the pact.

Clive Bates, director of Action on Smoking and Health, criticized the
United States participation as "entirely negative — weakening, delaying
and deleting anything that might have substance."

Lucinda Wykle-Rosenberg, of the Boston-based anti-tobacco lobby, Infact,
said, "The United States is weakening the language of the draft treaty by
changing `shall' to `should' in a number of places, including a ban on
advertising and promotion."