Business Day - Bid to curb influence of tobacco giants

CAPE TOWN — Countries represented at the World Health Organisation (WHO) tobacco-control treaty conference in Durban last week set new guidelines to try to stop tobacco firms influencing health policy.

 

This came just days after Parliament passed SA’s Tobacco Products Control Amendment Bill, prompting calls from antitobacco campaigners for the government to start work on new amendments to bring the law in line with the agreement.

 

 The guidelines say governments should reject partnerships with the tobacco industry and limit interaction with these groups. While the agreement reached at the weekend is not legally binding, the 160 signatories to the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control are likely to use the guidelines to shape national policy.

 

The WHO estimates tobacco kills 5,4-million people a year, and that over the next decade more than four-fifths of tobacco-related deaths will be in developing countries.

 

The bill was passed last week and now requires only President Kgalema Motlanthe’s signature to become law. It tightens existing tobacco law, and includes measures such as a ban on internet tobacco sales, tighter control of tobacco ads and promotion, and prohibits smoking in cars carrying children under the age of 12.

 

Campaigners say the bill does not go far enough to curb the tobacco groups’ influence. Early drafts would have banned all tobacco group donations, but the final version lets them make donations provided they do not publicise this largesse, says National Council Against Smoking spokesman Peter Ucko. “That is a weakness.”

 

The council hoped health officials at the conference would recognise weaknesses in the new law, and move to rectify them, Ucko says. There was inappropriate industry influence on the policy process leading to consideration of the bill of just the sort the WHO guidelines seek to stop, such as an industry-sponsored “study tour” last year with the Association for the Reduction of Tobacco Harms paying for 23 politicians, including MPs overseeing the bill’s passage, to learn about smokeless tobacco in Sweden. British American Tobacco, which has 70% of the local market, funds the association.

 

“Is this interference? They will say no. But when you take politicians overseas and give them wonderful gifts, it has to have an influence,” says Ucko.

 

Pressure group Corporate Accountability International says the guidelines will help curtail tobacco industry tactics, and focus on the treaty’s lifesaving measures.