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HEALTH-TOBACCO-WHO
UN treaty cracks down on heated tobacco products
GENEVA, Oct 6, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Members of a global tobacco treaty took a
hard line Saturday on heated tobacco products, agreeing that they should face
the same restrictions as cigarettes despite possibly being less deadly.
The tobacco industry has argued that the World Health Organization was
missing an opportunity to save lives by not making compromises on heated
tobacco products, which create smoke-filled nicotine without some of the
cancerous burning agents found in cigarettes.
But the eighth meeting of state parties to the WHO’s Framework Convention
on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which closed Saturday, dismissed that argument and
instead called for the same bans on advertising, promotion and sponsorship
deals that apply to cigarettes.
“Tobacco use should not be renormalised, but should continue to be
denormalised as a socially acceptable behaviour,” FCTC chief Vera Luiza da
Costa e Silva told reporters.
She argued that the tobacco industry was disingenuously trying to suggest
that promoting heated tobacco could be part “of a harm reduction strategy.”
“Their only objective is to sell their products,” she said.
The FCTC’s decisions serve as guidelines for states to follow but are not
legally binding.
Carmen Audera, a consultant to the FCTC, ranked heated tobacco as less
harmful than cigarettes but more deadly than e-cigarettes, which typically
contain no tobacco.
But she told reporters that long-term testing on heated tobacco was non-
existent and voiced concern that promoting the products would ultimately see
less people quit smoking.
“People who have the intention to quit don’t quit because these substances
are in the market,” she said. “This is what the tobacco industry knows:
people go back to the real thing (cigarettes).”
Moira Gilchrist, Philip Morris International (PMI)’s vice president of
scientific and public communications, told reporters earlier this week that
the WHO has “so far has not fully recognised the potential benefits of
tobacco harm-reduction products.”
“We are encouraging every single smoker that we can to abandon cigarettes.
If they are not going to abandon nicotine or tobacco use completely, then
they should switch to these new products,” she added.
WHO officials and NGOs have repeatedly complained about the tobacco
industry’s efforts to infiltrate FCTC meetings, through government
delegations or agents posing as journalists.
The objective of these agents is to obstruct the talks, peddle
misinformation and block consensus, WHO has said.
Costa e Silva said that two people accredited as journalists were expelled
from this week’s FCTC conference following revelations that they were tied to
tobacco firms.
BSS/AFP/FI/ 2112 hrs