[Intl-tobacco] UN Headquarters: Hundreds to Protest U.S. Global Promotion of Big Tobacco

[Robert Weissman]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 31, 2002

Contact: Anna White, Essential Action
Phone: 202-415-6906 (cell)

Contact: Robert Weissman, Essential Action
Phone: 202-387-8030


UN Headquarters: Hundreds to Protest U.S. Global Promotion of Big
Tobacco

New York City ? Hundreds of citizens, including 200 youth advocates
involved with New York State’s youth empowerment program “Reality
Check,” will converge at the UN on Thursday to protest the Bush
Administration’s refusal to protect people around the world from
predatory transnational tobacco companies.

The World Health Organization projects that tobacco will kill 10 million

people annually by the year 2030 ? the equivalent of 70 jet planes
crashing each and every day.  If urgent action is not taken, tobacco
will soon become the leading cause of death worldwide, causing more
deaths than HIV, tuberculosis, maternal mortality, automobile accidents,

homicide, and suicide combined.

During the last two years, over 190 countries around the world have been

negotiating an international tobacco control treaty to counter the
escalating global toll of tobacco-related death and disease.  The U.S.
delegation, however, is working hard to derail the negotiations ? on
behalf of U.S.-based Philip Morris, the world’s largest tobacco
corporation.  The company donated $3 million to President Bush and
Republicans during the last election cycle.

New York City, with a population that is 40% foreign-born, has much to
gain from a strong FCTC. Smoking rates within immigrant communities and
within the populations of their countries of origin are often similar.
Abroad, the tobacco industry frequently uses NYC names, images, and
icons in tobacco advertisements to associate smoking with “freedom” and
the “American Dream.”

Where:   UN Dag Hammarskjold Plaza
         E 47th St between 1st & 2nd Ave

When:    12:30-2:00 pm, Thursday, August 1st
         (speakers will begin at 1pm)

Visuals: In addition to banners and signs, there will be a 10-foot-high
cigarette pack prop spoofing the U.S. administration’s promotion of Big
Tobacco over public health.

Speakers will include: Konstantin Krasovsky, who earlier this year
helped expose Philip Morris’ use of a pregnant-looking woman in an
cigarette billboard in Ukraine; Inoussa Saouna, who was fired from his
job at a radio station after providing information to a New York Times
reporter about Philip Morris concerts in Niger at which kids as young as

10-years-old were given free cigarette packs; and Joanne Koldare,
Director of the NYC Coalition for a Smoke Free City.

For more information see:
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/event/nycdemo

EVENT ENDORSED BY: American Lung Association, American Lung Association
of New York State, American Lung Association of the City of New York,
Center for Tobacco Free New York, Chinese American Planning Council,
Essential Action, Infact, New York's Asian American and Pacific Islander

Tobacco Control Network, NYC Coalition For A Smoke Free City, SmokeFree
Educational Services, Inc., South Asian League of Artists in America,
South Bronx Clean Air Coalition.

####

Essential Action is a Washington, DC-based corporate accountability
group.