From: bill@smokescreen.org
Date: Wed, 03/05/03
Per the two following articles, the final text of the WHO FCTC is at:
http://www.ash.org.uk/html/international/html/postINB6text.html
- - - -
US abstains in the war on tobacco
By Derrick Z. Jackson
Boston Globe
Wednesday, March 5, 2003
http://www.boston.com/[...]ar_on_tobacco+.shtml
<http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/064/oped/US_abstains_in_the_war_on_tobacco+.s
html>
THE UNITED NATIONS has voted to go war against the world's worst weapon
of mass destruction. The United States is against the resolution.
This news passed by with little notice last week. In Geneva, about 170
nations met in an effort to agree on a global treaty on tobacco.
Cigarettes, according to the World Health Organization, kill 4 million
people a year and will kill 10 million a year by 2030 if current trends
continue. Unless there is a war on tobacco, cigarettes will cut short
the lives of 500 million of the 6 billion people on earth.
Most of the nations that gathered in Geneva agreed to a final text that
will be presented to the WHO in May for adoption. The treaty, called the
Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, requires nations to implement
serious tobacco control programs. It would require cigarette companies
to put a health warning that would take up at least 30 percent of the
surface of a pack. It would eliminate labeling that misleads smokers to
think that a particular 'light' or 'mild' cigarette is less harmful than
others.
The pact would require signatories to move toward a ban on cigarette
advertising within the limits of a nation's laws. Signatories would be
required to fund tobacco control programs and consider taxes that reduce
smoking. With most of the world ready to fight a chemical weapon that
could be lethal for the equivalent of two United States of Americas,
WHO's director general, Gro Harlem Brundtland, called the treaty a 'real
milestone in the history of global public health.'
The treaty is a real millstone for the United States. The problem is
that the evil dictator killing millions is not Saddam Hussein. It is an
industry run by madmen holed up in New York skyscrapers and corporate
bunkers in Virginia and North Carolina. They have paid handsomely to
assure that President Bush will not launch an attack. In the 2002
election cycle, big tobacco gave $6.4 million of its $8.1 million in
contributions to Republicans. Philip Morris, the world's biggest
cigarette exporter, paid $3.4 million to buy influence, with 80 percent
of its contributions going to Republicans or the Republican Party.
So the ink had not even dried on the treaty when the US delegates
started making noise that the Bush administration might not sign it. The
US health attache in Geneva, David Hohman, said the United States wants
the treaty to allow a nation to opt out of provisions it finds
objectionable. For the Bush administration, that means just about the
whole treaty.
According to news reports, the administration is not happy with the idea
of federal funding of antitobacco programs, a ban on free samples, or
putting giant health warning on packs. Hohman said called the treaty's
provisions a 'complication for our legislative process.'
A few other nations, among them China, Japan, and Germany, where
cigarette production or advertising are rampant, have joined the United
States in objecting to parts of the treaty. But Washington has been so
singleminded in its attempt to sabotage the accord that it was called
'arrogant' by Thai officials.
American tobacco control activists have even asked that the United
States withdraw from Geneva rather than be such a drag on the
negotiations. John Seffrin, CEO of the American Cancer Society, said:
'At this critical juncture, the United States government is working
methodically to weaken virtually every aspect of this treaty. We call on
the US government to observe the first rule of the Hippocratic Oath: Do
no harm.'
Last week, referring to Iraq, Bush said: 'The global threat of
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction cannot be confronted by one
nation alone. . . . A threat to all must be answered by all. High-minded
pronouncements against proliferation mean little unless the strongest
nations are willing to stand behind them -- and use force if necessary.'
For the world's greatest weapon of mass destruction, Bush would leave
the world alone. In a couple of months, the tobacco treaty will be
presented to the World Health Assembly. If it is adopted, it will go out
for ratification. Only 40 nations need to ratify it for it to go into
effect in the countries that approve it. If the Bush administration does
not get behind the treaty, it will be every bit as cynical on cigarettes
as it accuses Saddam Hussein of being with weapons inspections.
When he needed the United Nations to put pressure on Iraq, Bush
complained that UN resolutions 'are being unilaterally subverted by the
Iraqi regime.' By subverting the global resolution against tobacco, the
United States is telling the UN to get lost. The United States wants a
UN resolution to go to war against a murderous dictator. When the UN
wants war against the biggest killer on the planet, the US is AWOL.
- - -
Secondhand Diplomacy
After closed-door meetings with cigarette makers, the Bush
administration is seeking to derail a global tobacco treaty.
By Barry Yeoman
Mother Jones
March/April 2003 Issue
http://www.motherjones.com/[...]03/10/ma_284_01.html
<http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2003/10/ma_284_01.html>
It was getting toward midnight when the phone rang in Thomas Novotny's
hotel room in Geneva. It was a May evening in 2001, and Novotny, then
the assistant surgeon general, was leading the U.S. delegation to
negotiations on the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, a global
treaty to reduce cigarette smoking. Appointed by President Clinton,
Novotny had steered the delegation along a moderate course, advocating
strong public-health measures in Geneva while trying not to antagonize
pro-tobacco conservatives in Congress. The American delegation
championed an international ban on smoking in restaurants, trains,
buses, and other public facilities. It supported mandatory worldwide
cigarette taxes designed to curb smoking and save millions of lives, and
it advocated a partial ban on tobacco advertising, prohibiting
commercial messages that might appeal to children.
The late-night call came from William Steiger, the new director of the
U.S. Office of Global Health Affairs and the godson of George Bush Sr.
Although Novotny and his team had already set out their position in
negotiations with 190 other nations, Steiger insisted the U.S. delegates
backpedal on several key issues affecting the tobacco industry. "We had
to back down on any sort of agreement for restricting cigarette
advertising, any sort of pro-tax stand, and any policies on secondhand
smoke restrictions," Novotny recalls. Steiger also ordered him to oppose
efforts to ban descriptive terms like "low-tar," "light," and "mild,"
which, according to the National Cancer Institute, deceive smokers into
thinking that those brands deliver less tar and nicotine than others.
"The positions that we had developed, which were headed in the right
direction, we had to reverse in midstream, almost in mid-sentence,"
Novotny says. "It was horrible. I felt devastated."
The phone call, Mother Jones has learned, was part of a
behind-the-scenes campaign being waged by the Bush administration to
water down international restrictions on tobacco. The Geneva treaty, in
the works since 1999, represents an unprecedented effort to stem a
worldwide epidemic that kills almost 5 million people a year. But as the
treaty nears its May completion date, the Bush administration has been
working quietly to ensure that the agreement does little to curb
smoking, opposing strict control measures backed by most Asian, African,
and European countries. In both public sessions and private
conversations, "the United States has continually sought to weaken a
treaty that they have no intent on signing," says Ross Hammond, who
represents the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids at the Geneva meetings.
Last October, in its most public effort to undermine the treaty, the
administration announced that it would vehemently oppose any effort to
phase out all cigarette advertising, saying that such a complete ban
would violate freedom-of-speech protections. "It's an absolute red line
for us," declared Kenneth Bernard, who replaced Novotny as assistant
surgeon general. "There's no way we can sign or participate in a
convention that includes that. It breaks our laws and Constitution."
When other delegates proposed a middle course -- allowing nations with
constitutional free-speech clauses to opt out of an international
advertising ban -- the U.S. delegation rejected the compromise.
On other issues -- taxation, secondhand smoke, misleading labels like
"low-tar" -- the Bush administration has brought the United States into
line with positions staked out by the tobacco industry. Six weeks before
the midnight phone call to Novotny, Philip Morris sent the
administration a 32-page letter detailing the company's stance on the
treaty. "Simply put, we think that the Framework Convention must
recognize, and reflect the reality, that smoking is -- and should remain
-- an adult choice," the company wrote. It then outlined 11 provisions
it wanted struck from the treaty. Philip Morris opposed all additional
taxes, arguing that "cigarettes are already among the highest-taxed
consumer products in the world." It also argued against regulating
cigarette use in restaurants, saying such decisions "are generally best
left to individual proprietors, each of whom has an economic incentive
to provide a comfortable environment for nonsmokers and smokers alike."
Philip Morris legislative counsel Mark Berlind says there were "two or
three" meetings between government officials and industry leaders
regarding the tobacco treaty. (The White House has refused congressional
requests to release information about the closed-door conversations.) A
month after sending the letter, Philip Morris contributed $57,764 to the
Republican Party. One week later, Novotny was ordered to back down at
the Geneva negotiations, and the U.S. delegation began advocating for 10
of the 11 deletions advocated by Philip Morris.
"It's either an eye-popping coincidence or a testament to the insidious
influence that Philip Morris has on the Bush administration," says Rep.
Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California. "The appearance is awful."
Berlind insists the timing of the campaign contributions was
coincidental, adding that President Bush has not sided with Philip
Morris on every issue. "We would like to see a strong treaty that sets
minimum worldwide standards that countries would have to follow but
could exceed," Berlind says. "There's no behind-the-scenes lobbying to
get countries to adopt our secret position."
In fact, internal documents show that Philip Morris was working behind
the scenes long before negotiations began. In 1997 the company hired
Mongoven, Biscoe & Duchin, a Washington public-relations firm that
specializes in opposing public-health efforts. In an analysis prepared
that year, Mongoven warned, "The ultimate objective of the World Health
Organization staff and bureaucracy is to eradicate the use of tobacco,"
and suggested that Philip Morris try to thwart the treaty before it was
even fashioned. "The first alternative to an onerous convention is to
delay its crafting and adoption," the report said. Mongoven also
prepared a character assassination memo for Philip Morris targeting who
director-general Gro Harlem Brundtland. The company insists it ignored
the memo, but it was later found in a company official's folder marked
"who Planning."
Given the Bush administration's resistance to international treaties,
health advocates doubt it will ever ratify the Framework Convention --
even if it is watered down to address U.S. objections. "I think it's
basically a dead-in-the-water issue," says Novotny, the former
delegation leader and now a visiting professor of epidemiology at the
University of California in San Francisco. "Getting anything signed by
the president that has any teeth would be unlikely." Some smoking
opponents believe other nations should focus on passing the strongest
possible treaty they can, without counting on America's signature.
Whether or not the administration signs the tobacco treaty after it is
completed in May, U.S. efforts to weaken the agreement have angered
health advocates around the world. They point out that America is the
world's leading exporter of cigarettes -- and that its own citizens
enjoy many of the protections proposed in the treaty. "Evidently, the
U.S. has misplaced its priorities," says Phillip Karugaba, a Ugandan who
represents the Environmental Action Network at the talks. "While the
U.S. courts make such astounding decisions on compensation to smokers,
and some U.S. cities boast of very progressive measures on tobacco
control, the U.S. seems bent on depriving the rest of the world of such
advantage."
|
