The world strives to curb tobacco consumption

By Johanna Son

MANILA: For years, health experts and anti-smoking advocates have become blue in the face from issuing countless warnings about ill health and tobacco's telltale links to cancer.

But there are still a billion smokers in the world, and worried experts say their arguments are no longer enough to combat tobacco use in many of Asia's developing countries.

Tobacco consumption is on the rise in the region, largely because of China, where fast growth has helped drive a 20 percent increase in cigarette consumption per adult from 1985 to 1992.

China accounts for a third of the world's tobacco consumption.

Many of its 300 million smokers are teenagers, and for every cigarette less smoked in developed countries, three are lit in China. Studies predict that more than two million Chinese will die early from smoking-related diseases by the year 2025.

Chinese tobacco barons are experiencing a boom. In China's southern Yunnan province, tobacco production has been turned into a lucrative industry that provides four-fifths of the province's revenue.

But the local tobacco bigwigs are bracing for a decline in sales as foreign competitors enter the market.

Some predict a fall in tobacco consumption in China as anti- smoking campaigns gain ground. But in a region targeted for an aggressive marketing drive by tobacco firms, the World Health Organization (WHO) says the war against tobacco needs weapons other than health arguments.

"The forces of public health need to be stronger. We need to focus on substantial economic costs which tobacco inflicts on government, on business and industry, on individuals and families and on the environment," says Dr. S. T. Han, WHO regional direc tor for the Western Pacific.

WHO's Western Pacific region includes parts of South-East Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific. Among the WHO regions, this shows the greatest increase with a 2.2 percent rise in smoking consumption.

"This is the only region in the world where tobacco consump tion is increasing," Han says.

While cigarette use in developed countries has fallen by 10 percent since 1970, the reverse has been happening in developing countries where per capita cigarette consumption climbed by 67 percent.

Health experts are particularly concerned about how tobacco adverisements are getting younger people and more women to pick up the smoking habit, which is often prresented as socially desirable.

Smoking is still a mainly male habit in developing nations, but the number of female smokers is rising in many poorer coun tries. Experts say tobacco ads have broken many cultural taboos against women smoking, even promoting it as a sign of independ ence and equality.

WHO is trying to get people and governments to listen to economic reasons for not smoking. Among the economic costs of smoking are higher national medical and welfare costs, arable land that could grow food instead of tobacco and the loss of foreign exchange by countries that import foreign brands.

In its 1995-1999 action scheme, WHO is hoping to do more toward creating an economic climate hostile to tobacco.

It is urging governments to raise tobacco taxes to dampen demand and consumption and to ban tobacco ads. Most countries still allow advertising on billboards, print and broadcast media, though more governments have imposed no-smoking flights and no- smoking regulations in public places and vehicles.

And since cigarette firms are heavily into sponsorship of sports and arts events, WHO suggests the use of a percentage of these taxes to fund such events. In Asia alone, the tobacco industry has predicted sales increases of 33 percent between 1991 and the year 2000.

At least 27 countries already have such bans, including Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Papua New Guinea and Vietnam.

The prevalence of smoking has fallen in countries like Singapore and Hong Kong. But the U.S. -- based International Advertising Association says smoking in other countries with ad bans, like Thailand and Taiwan, have increased.

Some countries have also quantified some economic costs arising from tobacco use.

In 1987, Hong Kong spent US$40 million in hospital costs for tobacco-related illnesses. The Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine said that in 1989, the social and health costs of work er' illness, absences and premature deaths reached US$3.5 bil lion.

Says Han: "In our region, where we pride ourselves in economic growth, costs like these are unacceptable."

Many experts say pushing up the cost of tobacco products, by hiking taxes and prices, may well the best way to lower demand for tobacco. In industrialized nations a 10 percent price rise results in a four percent fall in consumption.

WHO's materials on tobacco make an extra pitch to leaders, saying raising tobacco taxes is a rare chance for them to save lives, raise revenue and "be popular" as well.

But taxing tobacco is a politically tough issue in many nations where the industry lobby is strong. Two years ago, the Philippines tried to raise "six taxes" on cigarettes and liquor, but the resulting law changed little.

In China, however, anti-smoking activists seem to be at last making some headway. In the run-up to the WHO's Anti-smoking Conference to be held in Beijing in 1997, three Chinese cities have drafted laws banning smoking in public areas.

Shanghai, which has long had a law banning smoking in public places, recently vowed to start strictly enforcing it.

China's first advertising law banning media advertisements for cigarettes was also enacted this year, although translational tobacco firms sidestep the restriction by sponsoring sports events and clothing lines.

-- IPS