Tobacco ads ban planned in Pacific<\/p>\n
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Delegates at a World Health Organization
\n(WHO) meeting say they plan to push Western Pacific governments
\nto ban advertising and sponsorship by cigarette companies by
\n2000.<\/p>\n
A ban on any kind of tobacco promotion would lead to a
\nreduction in smoking in a region where more and more people were
\nlighting up, the delegates to the 45th WHO committee meeting for
\nthe Western Pacific said on Friday.<\/p>\n
"It is estimated that of the 1.6 billion population in the
\nregion, 50 percent of men and five to seven percent of women
\nsmoke," Han Sang Tae, Western Pacific director for WHO, said.<\/p>\n
The WHO's Western Pacific list consists of 35 countries
\nincluding Japan, Australia, New Zealand, China, Hong Kong, Macau,
\nSouth Korea, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and India.<\/p>\n
Han said an aggressive campaign against smoking had to be
\nmounted in the region to stop escalating cigarette sales --
\npredicted to rise by 30 percent in Asia alone by 2000.<\/p>\n
The WHO will push for enforcement of policies and the
\nintroduction of legislation leading to a ban on advertising and
\nsponsorship of sports and cultural events by cigarette companies
\nin the Western Pacific, Han said.<\/p>\n
He said the world health body would also propose that a
\npercentage of tobacco taxes levied in the region be used to fund
\nhealth promotion which lost out in sponsorship from the ban.<\/p>\n
Han said by the turn of the century, more than 10 million
\ntobacco-related diseases were expected in the world annually,
\nwith two million in China alone and seven million in developing
\ncountries.<\/p>\n
The current global figure for such deaths is about three
\nmillion a year, coming mostly from developed countries, he said.<\/p>",
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