NEW YORK: TOBACCO CORPORATIONS STEP UP INVASION OF DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Facing increasing restriction in the USA and other industrialised
countries, transnational tobacco companies are increasingly marketed their
products in developing countries, particularly among women and adolescents.
While smoking rates in some industrialised countries are decreasing at
about 1% a year, those in developing countries are increasing at around 3%
per year. It is estimated that, if current trends persist for the next 30
years, 7 million people from developing countries will die every year from
smoking-related diseases.

Judith Mackay, director of the Asian Consultancy on Tobacco Control (Hong
Kong, China) says that while smoking is decreasing in the West,
transnational tobacco companies are turning to softer markets, particularly
in Asia, where health information is less well known.

For the past several years, corporations such as Philip Morris, RJ
Reynolds, and British-American Tobacco have been expanding rapidly in
Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In the USA, Blacks,
Latinos, and other minority groups are special targets of
tobacco-promotional campaigns. In many Black and Latino neighbourhoods,
80-90% of billboard advertising is for tobacco and alcohol.

Tobacco-provoked deaths can only add to the inequities in health of ethnic
and minority populations. As Jeanette Noltenius, executive director of the
Latino Council on Alcohol and Tobacco (Washington, DC, USA) remarks, "In
the US, minorities such as Hispanics have been specifically targeted by the
tobacco companies since the early 1960s, and have received a double dose of
advertising [in Spanish and English]".

A study of Hispanic eighth graders in the USA revealed that 18·3% had
smoked within the past 30 days, compared with 6·6% of Blacks and 17·8% of
Whites. According to data from the Bureau of Census, US Department of
Commerce, Latino youth will triple in size in 2020, increasing from 9% of
the national youth population to 19%.

Under a deal reached last June, five major tobacco companies have reached a
US$368·5 billion agreement to settle existing lawsuits by states and
smokers. That deal, which is now under consideration by Congress,
practically ignores the cigarette makers' overseas operations, a critical
area of concern.

Since the early 1980s, US trade officials, with help from the Office of the
US Trade Representative (USTR) have led a sustained campaign to open
markets in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand among the Asian
nations. In 1995, for example, the US Embassy in Thailand intervened on
behalf of US tobacco companies when the government of Thailand proposed
regulations that required the disclosure of ingredients of all brand-name
cigarettes sold in Thailand.

Senator Jesse Helms and other supporters of the tobacco industry's
interests in Washington have used section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act to
threaten retaliatory tariffs on those countries' exports unless they open
their markets to US companies. Helms successfully used these prerogatives
to pressure the Japanese government to open its markets to US tobacco
products.

In Taiwan, US officials' efforts to force Taiwan to open its markets to US
tobacco products have resulted in increased smoking, particularly among
women and children. Talking about US government support for American
tobacco companies, a corporation executive remarked, "We expect such
support. That's why we vote them in".

These actions have prompted the Asia-Pacific Association for the Control of
Tobacco to protest strongly at what they consider an invasion of their
countries by US companies targeting Asian women and children. The
Association has complained about the strong-arm tactics used by US
government officials in their countries. A 1990 report from the US General
Accounting Office established that, "US policy and programs for assisting
the export of tobacco and tobacco products work at cross purposes to US
health policy initiatives, both domestically and internationally".

A prime target for those promoting increased tobacco use is China, where
tobacco companies have been moving steadily inland, with intense
promotional campaigns. It is estimated that of the world's 1·1 billion
smokers, 300 million are in China. Smokers in the US consume 450 billion
cigarettes a year, while those in China consume approximately 1·7 trillion
during the same period. Lung cancer in China has been increasing at a rate
of 4·5% a year.

Lured by financial gains from growing tobacco, 1·8 million hectares in
China are presently under cultivation. Gains from the sale of tobacco ,
however, may be just short-term, since the cost of treating lung cancer and
other related diseases amply exceed the tobacco profits. According to
Mackay, those excess costs are $200 billion annually on a global scale,
one-third of which is incurred by developing countries.

While anti-smoking efforts gather momentum in the USA, those efforts are
far less effective in developing countries. Such countries' policies will
not be as effective unless transnational tobacco firms are made to limit
their aggressive advertisements.

Countries in Asia and Latin America are conducting health-education
campaigns and have passed legislation to control smoking. Up to now, 91
countries worldwide have enacted legislation to control tobacco
consumption. Although in general this legislation has been passed at the
national level, in the USA, Canada, and in several countries in Latin
America and the Caribbean these laws are being enacted by state or local
bodies.

While the USA blames Colombia and other South American countries for their
cocaine exports, the USA continues its indiscriminate promotional tobacco
efforts in those countries, at a much higher human cost. As things stand
now, only a multidisciplinary strategy including education, taxation,
legislation, and regulation of trade practices of transnational
corporations will be able to control this pandemic.