GENEVA – The first ever hearings by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to adopt a convention to control tobacco products worldwide began in Geneva yesterday (Thursday).  

Some eighty-five submissions were presented to the WHO on day one of the two-day hearing by a range of representatives including medical associations, anti-tobacco activists, tobacco farmers and the tobacco industry.

The overwhelming number of speakers endorsed the initiative by the WHO to set up the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FTCT) and appealed to the international body to take strong and swift action to control the marketing and distribution of tobacco products.  

Speaking on behalf of the American Lung Association, Dr Alfred Munzer said tobacco was not like any other product. “It kills when it is used as intended,” he said.  

“Tobacco is more addictive than heroin,” he said, “it is the most deadly and addictive drug ever known to man”. Munzer said that his organisation did not condone the participation of the tobacco industry in the framework convention, a point echoed by several anti-tobacco groups.

In a submission on behalf of the Washington-based Advocacy Institute, Ross Hammond said the behaviour of the tobacco industry over the past four decades, such as its suppression of information about the dangerous effects of smoking and the addictive properties of nicotine, meant that the industry had “forfeited away any claim to be included in the negotiations”.  

South African Corne van Walbeek of the Applied Fiscal Research Centre at the University of Cape Town said increases in the real price of tobacco products had a direct effect on consumption. “A ten percent increase in the price of cigarettes has been shown to reduce consumption by 6 to 8 percent,” he said. “An increase in real excise rates increases real government revenue.”

He added that South Africa’s newly passed tobacco legislation was no stricter than similar legislation in countries such as Thailand, Canada and Australia.

Spokesperson for the Bangladesh Free Trade Union Congress, Tania Amir, said anti-tobacco initiatives should not be seen as a “western agenda”. Human lives in the developing world were as important as human lives in the West and tobacco was equally harmful wherever it was used.

Another Bangladesh anti-tobacco activist, Soon-Young Yoon said people in the developing world were most likely to be affected by tobacco-related illnesses, but least likely to benefit from tobacco growth or sales.  

One of the few dissenting voices during yesterday’s hearings came from the president of the Tobacco Growers’ Association of Brazil, Hainst Gralow, who said his organisation represented some 120 000 tobacco growing families in southern Brazil. He said his members farmed tobacco because it earned them far better revenue than other crops such as maize or black beans.  

“I urge you, on behalf of the small tobacco growers, to consider their situation before you take any decision,” he said. “I am very worried about people who derive a livelihood from tobacco growing.”

Following the two-day hearing, the WHO will begin negotiations on what measures to adopt in the convention and when and how it will be implemented. The WHO said it hopes to have a global tobacco control convention in place by 2003.-Health-e News Service.