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Thailand lights up
anti-smoking drive
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - As one of Southeast Asia's
leaders in the drive to snuff out smoking,
Thailand has become a battleground to test how
much longer cigarettes will be publicly available
following an international anti-tobacco treaty
that came into force on Sunday.
Leading
anti-tobacco campaigners in the country are
determined to use the newest weapon in their armor
- the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control
(FCTC) - to drive home their advantage over the
financially powerful tobacco multinationals.
They have in mind two initiatives that are
set to shake up Thailand's smoking culture. The
first will go into effect on March 25, when
cigarette packets sold in the country will begin
displaying graphic pictures about the health
hazards that come with tobacco addiction.
"These pictures will cover 50% of the
cigarette packet," Dr Hatai Chitannondh, a medical
doctor who is president of the Thai Health
Promotion Institute, told Inter Press Service.
"They show what smoking does to your lungs, how it
affects your teeth, how it leads to premature
aging."
This measure, more emphatic than
what the FCTC expects - that graphic pictorial
warnings should cover only 30% of a cigarette
packet - makes Thailand the fourth country in the
world to enforce such a picture policy. The other
three are Canada, Brazil and Singapore.
Another change will come into effect on
May 31, marked globally as the world's
anti-smoking day. Beginning from that date,
"retail shops and small stores [in Thailand] will
not be able to publicly display cigarette packets
on their racks," said Hatai. "The cigarettes will
have to be hidden away in drawers or cupboards,
away from sight."
These measures come on
top of Thai laws banning smoking in
air-conditioned restaurants and bans on all forms
of tobacco-related advertising. Furthermore, in
December, the government of Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra warned retailers that shops selling
cigarettes to minors could be fined US$750 and
could also face a three-month prison term.
In addition to placing curbs on smoking,
the FCTC is also expected to strengthen the push
by countries such as Thailand to crackdown on
cigarette smuggling.
"The biggest
advantage of the treaty is that it covers
trans-boundary issues such as cross-border
advertising and smuggling," said Mary Assunta,
head of the Framework Convention Alliance
(FCA) - an umbrella group of more than 200
anti-smoking organizations from around the world.
The treaty will be a boon to Southeast
Asian countries still lagging behind regional
leaders such as Thailand and Singapore to achieve
the "minimum standards" in tobacco control
measures, said Assunta. "In countries such as
Indonesia, Cambodia and Laos, where local
legislation is lacking, this treaty will empower
the governments to act."
According to a
World Bank study, cigarette smuggling is a
"serious problem" and the global amount of
cigarettes taken illegally across borders is
estimated at 355 billion. "Most smuggled
cigarettes are well-known international brands,"
the Bank added.
Tobacco multinationals
encourage the sale of these smuggled cigarettes,
revealed an article in the December 2004 issue of
Tobacco Control, a quarterly publication of the
British Medical Journal.
"Smuggling
operations were key to BAT's [British American
Tobacco's] broader efforts to penetrate the huge
Chinese market," states the article. "Plans for
Cambodia rested on its strategic value to regional
contraband, and Laos seems to have been largely
viewed in terms of its smuggling potential."
According to available estimates, the
highest number of smokers in Southeast Asia, the
majority being men, are in Vietnam, Cambodia,
Indonesia and the Philippines. Nearly 73% of the
men in Vietnam smoke, while 70% of Cambodian men
do so and 68% of Indonesians.
In Thailand,
on the other hand, there are an estimated 12
million smokers out of a population of 64 million
people. Of that number, nearly 1.2 million are
teenagers.
The FCTC sets new global
standards for countries to adhere to in the fight
against tobacco consumption. The international law
to protect people from the hazards of smoking
calls for a slew of measures - including an
increase in tobacco taxation - with no hint of
compromise toward tobacco multinationals.
Currently, there are 1.3 billion smokers
worldwide, of which some 650 million "will die
prematurely due to tobacco", states the World
Health Organization (WHO). The Geneva-based UN
agency estimates that nearly 5 million people die
annually due to tobacco-related illnesses, a
number that could rise to 10 million deaths every
year by 2020 if prevailing smoking trends
continue.
The push for the FCTC, the
world's first public health treaty, was led by the
WHO. More than 160 countries and the European
Union have signed the treaty and 57 nations have
ratified it, giving it the necessary support to
become law.
The Southeast Asian nations
that have ratified the FCTC are Brunei, Myanmar,
Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam.
That
Southeast Asia remains pivotal in the global
campaign against smoking is reflected in the WHO's
assessment that the region has the "second-highest
annual per capita growth rate in tobacco
consumption".
Hatai, the Thai public
health activist, is determined that Thailand helps
buck this trend in Southeast Asia and emerge as a
model for others to follow. "We want Thailand to
be the gold standard in implementing the FCTC and
controlling tobacco," he said.
(Inter
Press Service) |
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