World No Tobacco Day Celebrates Global Treaty

The World Health Organization (WHO) will celebrate the annual World No Tobacco Day on May 31. The 2011 theme calls attention to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control(FCTC). The first global treaty initiated under the auspices of the WHO, the FCTC has been in force since 2005 with over 170 signatory parties to date reaffirming “the right of all people to the highest standard of health and new legal dimensions for cooperation in tobacco control.”

The United States signed on as a non-party in 2004. The Senate has yet to ratify the treaty. There had been concern that the U.S. would try to weaken provisions and doubts about the possibility for implementation. In fact, the Family Smoking and Tobacco Prevention Act of 2009, giving limited authority over tobacco to the FDA, contains provisions allowing non-voting participation by the industry on a scientific advisory panel. This compromises Article 5.3 of the FCTC conflicting with the first guiding principal of the treaty that, “There is a fundamental and irreconcilable conflict between the tobacco industry’s interests and public health policy interests.” This seems to have been ignored when major public health groups in the U.S. collaborated with Philip Morris to pass this law.

Additionally, the treaty recommends that all tobacco advertising be banned. While other nations are proposing plain packaging and have products hidden behind counters this promises difficulty in the U.S. Unlike many countries, U.S. courts have upheld a doctrine of commercial speech for tobacco companies. Given the recent Citizens United decision, it is not clear how sympathetic the sitting Supreme Court will be to compelling public health concerns about tobacco.

The strength of the FCTC, despite the influence of the tobacco industry in this country, is a recognition of the extent and potential for harm caused by multi-national tobacco corporations. Writing in the August, 2006 Human Rights Quarterly, on The Emerging Human Right to Tobacco Control, Dr. Carolyn Dresler notes,

“In the developed world, the health effects of tobacco on the individual are well established, as are its effects on society. However, only predictions based on experience of the established tobacco consuming markets are available to warn of the impending epidemic of tobacco related death and disease that will disastrously affect individuals and society in the developing world.”

It is only with global initiatives like the FCTC can we begin to meet this challenge.