[Intl-tobacco] Open Letter Urging Tobacco Products Be Excluded From FTAA

[Robert Weissman]

November 18, 2003

Dear Delegates to the FTAA Ministerial:

We are writing to urge you to exclude tobacco products from the Free
Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which you will be negotiating
November 20-21, 2003 in Miami, FL.

Tobacco is a product like no other, in that it kills if used as
intended. According to the Pan American Health Organization, tobacco
already kills more than a million people a year in the Americas,
including 440,000 deaths in the U.S. alone. If we care about the health
and well-being of people throughout the region, we must recognize the
unique and deadly nature of tobacco and treat it differently than we do
other commodities.

Failure to exclude tobacco from the FTAA would give multinational
tobacco corporations a variety of means to threaten sound tobacco
control policies throughout the Americas. For example, tobacco
corporations might invoke intellectual property protections to oppose
bans on the use of misleading descriptors like "mild" and "light,"
alleging that such prohibitions interfere with trademark-protected names
that include such terms; contest the strengthening of health warnings,
arguing that they infringe upon trademark rights; and challenge
ingredient disclosure laws, claiming a violation of trade secret
protections =96 all arguments they have made under other trade agreements,
including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

The service agreements may conflict with efforts to restrict tobacco
product retail distribution networks and limit tobacco advertising and mark=
eting.

Most worrisome are foreign investment protections. Investment
protections of the type included in NAFTA would give companies such as
Philip Morris, BAT and Japan Tobacco standing to directly challenge
national and sub-national laws that they claim are tantamount to an
expropriation of their property. Under NAFTA, such claims may be made on
broad grounds. Philip Morris has already suggested that a Canadian ban
on "light" and "mild" would be tantamount to an expropriation of its
trademark on products such as Benson & Hedges Lights and Rothmans Extra
Light. The mere prospect of such challenges to tobacco control laws may
deter countries from adopting sound public health measures, leading to
countless, preventable deaths.

There is no legitimate rationale for including tobacco products - a
lethal good - in trade agreements. We urge you to work to avert these
potential harms to public health by advocating the exclusion of tobacco
products from the scope of the FTAA.

Sincerely,

Twenty-eight organizations throughout the Americas

ARGENTINA
o Grupo Anti-Tabaquismo del Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires (GRANTAHI)

CANADA
o Non-Smokers' Rights Association
o Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada

CHILE
o Comisi=F3n de Tabaquismo Sociedad Chilena de Enfermedades Respiratorias
o Fundaci=F3n CIPRESS
o Programa de Control del Tabaquismo Instituto Nacional del T=F3rax

COLOMBIA
o Consumidores Colombia (COCO)
o Liga Colombiana contra el Cancer

HONDURAS
o Comision Nacional sobre Control del Tabaquismo (CONACTA)

MEXICO
o Centro de Prevenci=F3n y Rehabilitaci=F3n de Enfermedades Pulmonares
Cr=F3nicas (CEPREP)
o Consejo Nacional contra las Addiciones
o Fundaci=F3n Fomento de Desarrollo, Teresa de Jesus, I.A.P.
o La Inicitiva de Salud Fronteriza Mexicali/Imperial
o Instituto de F=EDsica de la UNAM
o Programa Amigo

PERU
o Comisi=F3n Nacional Permanente de Lucha Antitabaquica del Per=FA (COLAT-P=
ERU)

SURINAME
o Romano Foundation Suriname

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
o Coalition for Tobacco-Free Trinidad and Tobago

UNITED STATES
o American Cancer Association
o American Heart Association
o American Lung Association
o Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids
o Council for Responsible Public Investment
o Essential Action
o Global Exchange
o Infact

URUGUAY
o Sindicato M=E9dico del Uruguay
o Observatorio Nacional para el estudio de la Epidemia de Tabaquismo (ONET)