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Don't You Believe It
You probably know by now that—even while they’re sponsoring look-good anti-smoking campaigns in the U.S.—major tobacco companies have accelerated cigarette production and distribution in other countries, especially poorer countries.
You may have heard one of their excuses. They say they are preserving jobs for nations that sorely need them. And they warn that recent job cuts are all because of anti-smoking initiatives by governments in places like South Africa.
They’re lying.
A South African economist took a look at employment patterns in his country. Lo and behold, he found that the tobacco companies were eliminating jobs long before the government introduced tobacco control legislation. Here’s the whole story.
Dead Last
Which state ranks last in the funding of programs to help people, including youth, stop smoking?
If you guessed Michigan, you’re right. If you live in Michigan, call your local and federal government repesentatives. Complain.
Adding to the disgrace, the state of Michigan collects an annual $1.4 billion in tobacco-generated revenue from tobacco litigation settlement payments and tobacco taxes. But in 2006 and so far in 2007, it did not use any of that revenue to help people stop smoking.
For more background, read this
Good News Bad News
There’s good news for some poor people as Ghana’s sole tobacco producer British American Tobacco (BAT) announced that it will halt production of cigarettes in that country.
However, there’s bad news for many others as this move means that BAT will likely increase production elsewhere in Africa, to make up for the cuts in volume as well as to export directly to Ghana.
The lesson here is that even small nations can fight back against corporate giants that put profits over people. Ghana has a tough tobacco bill in its parliament that will ban smoking in public places.
If enough small countries follow suit, big tobacco will see its global market shrink little by little. Even small victories save lives.
Web of Complicity
By now, you should be aware that major tobacco companies are increasing production in Third World nations and, for that matter, producing stronger, more lethal cigarettes for consumers in those countries—even as they piously try to discourage smoking in the United States.
Check out the Tobacco link on this page for more information.
Here’s a really interesting and somewhat sinister twist on the story. There’s apparently an unholy, if tacit, agreement between British American Tobacco and, of all people, Warner Bros. Productions to use Hollywood movies to encourage poor people to smoke more.
Read about how a group called Essential Action has done a great job of following up on this exploitation.
Hypocrites
In the United States, the major tobacco companies are showing how much they care about you. They’re trying to help you quit smoking, and they’re leading crusades against teenage consumption.
That’s nice of them.
Unfortunately, they’re also increasing cigarette production in poor nations around the world. Millions are dying.
In Nigeria alone, 300,000 people die every year as tobacco companies goose up the marketing as well as the manufacturing.
Check the tobacco link for additional commentary.
Here’s what ANDnetwork .com just reported:
No fewer than five million people die yearly globally while 300,000 people die annually in Nigeria of tobacco related illness such as cancer, tuberculosis, heart failure and kidney failure, among others.
Minister of Health, Professor Eyitoyo Lambo, who gave the frightening figures at a news conference in Abuja on Tuesday to mark the world’s No Tobacco Day said about 1.4 million Nigerians smoke daily while 500,000 of them pick up cancer and TB yearly.
He stated that tobacco intake has been responsible for a global epidemic that is increasingly ravaging countries and regions that can least afford its toll of disability, disease, lost productivity and deaths.
“Tobacco causes over 25 diseases in man, including heart attack and stroke as well as several cancers. It also predisposes to tuberculosis, pneumonia disorders and account for a number of pregnancy-related morbidity,” he explained.
Lambo said tobacco is a major cause of death in the world as it is currently responsible for the death of one in every 10 adults worldwide, and warned that if current smoking patterns continue, it would cause a further 10 million deaths annually by 2020.
He added that half of the 650 million people who smoke today will eventually die of tobacco-related diseases and warned tobacco producing companies that have continued to put profits before life to have a re-think about the development.
Lambo lamented that rather than consider the health hazards that their products have caused and seek a remedy to the situation, multi-national tobacco industries continue to launch new products which are disguised to appear less harmful and more attractive.
“We are aware that today, tobacco companies continue to expand with new variants of the ‘light’, ‘mild’, ‘low tar’, cigarette campaigns so popular with the youths, thereby taking their old customers to more insidious levels of deception by promoting and selling new products disguised under healthier names and fruity flavour.
He maintained that tobacco smokers not only infect people by making them smoke but by sitting near them and called on Nigerians to completely and totally desist from tobacco smokers.
A Global War
The Big Lie
What’s wrong with this picture?
Right now, the major tobacco companies are all running anti-smoking campaigns in the United States and Europe.
Yet right now they are also redoubling their marketing efforts in Third World countries to sell stronger tobacco in greater volume. There are no age limits in these countries prohibiting children from smoking.
The hypocrisy is obvious. But it’s worse than hypocrisy.
Once upon a time, the tobacco companies pretended (even under oath) that tobacco was not a health hazard. Today they admit it is a health hazard, and are trying to refine domestic marketing in order to improve their image.
In other words, they admit that what they’re selling in places like Africa is a deadly drug. They just don’t seem to care. Worse than hypocrisy, it’s cruel indifference to human life. And oh yes, it’s racism.
What does this have to do with you? If nothing else, it’s a question of your own awareness. When a tobacco company tells you it’s doing everything possible to support public health maintenance, don’t you believe it!
If nothing else, don’t let them play you for a sucker!
Here’s more on the terrible human suffering that’s going on right now.
The World Health Organization takes aim at the tobacco industry’s global deceit and hypocisy.
As more countries ban public smoking, tobacco companies look for new countries to infect.
Here’s how tobacco companies are targeting the youth market in India..
The struggle to protect human beings from the pernicious effects of tobacco has become a worldwide struggle.
Here’s an important group that is helping.
In Great Britain, the British are poised to force tobacco companies to help end costly tobacco smuggling.
In Southeast Europe, the Albanians are finally outlawing the sale of cigarettes to children.
Visit our News section for still more on tobacco.
