ERA raises alarm over smoking parties in Lagos

Implementation of tobacco treaty will save 200m people –Report

-Mahmud Lalo

 

No fewer than 200 million people in the world will be saved by the year 2050 if the tobacco treaty is implemented, a report by the Environmental Rights Action, Friends of the Earth, Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) and Corporate Accountability International has said.

The report also alleged tobacco companies interference in the implementation of the global tobacco treaty formally known as the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

“Tobacco companies interference remains the single greatest obstacle to this objective and a centerpiece of discussion at the November meeting,” the report said.

Director of Corporate Accountability International, Gigi Kellet, said tobacco companies initially tried to bully the global community out of advancing the treaty and that it is now attempting to bully countries out of enforcing it.

According to the report, each year, tobacco kills more than five million people and that 80 per cent of the victims are in underdeveloped countries.

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Tobacco firms impede implementation of FCTC, says ERA

ERA seeks passage of tobacco bill

-BY MICHAEL ORIE

THE Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) yesterday called on the National Assembly to pass into law the National Tobacco Control Bill, saying its delay has further promoted the activity of tobacco industries in the country.
    The call was made in the wake of the 10th International Week of the Resistance Against Tobacco Transnational, to expose the ever-evolving tactics of the tobacco industry to undermine public health through its lethal products.
   According to the Director, Accountability Campaigns and Administration, Environmental Rights Action, Oluwafemi Akinbode, the bill had been foot-dragging for the past two years without a particular reason for the delay.
  “We have an increase worries on why the bill has not been passed, as there is a clear indication the delay might have a political undertone,” he said.
   The one-week event that started yesterday is aimed at building momentum in the run-up to the World Health Organisation (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) meetings in Uruguay in November this year for a unified international action to prevent the tobacco industry from derailing the FCTC’s life-saving measures.
    Akinbode, to prove the menace the delay has caused, said “in solidarity with our allies and NGOs across the globe taking part in several actions to expose some of the tobacco industry tactics to undermine the FCTC, ERA/FoEN has released a report from tobacco industry watchdog  – Corporate Accountability International – documenting persistent and ongoing efforts to obstruct the FCTC on the African continent and around the world. The report points to tobacco industry interference as the single greatest obstacle to the treaty realising its full potential.”
   He added that the report is intended to keep governments alert and make them anticipate and thwart attempts by the vested commercial interests of the tobacco industry to undermine the implementation of tobacco control policies.
   According to Akinbode,  Nigeria which is among the first few countries that signed the FCTC in 2004 and ratified it in 2005 is still foot-dragging in totally domesticating the treaty through the National Tobacco Control Bill which was hailed by local and international groups at the public hearing organised by the Senate Committee on Health in July 2009 as a step to curbing “the gale of deaths which tobacco has wrought on this nation.”
“British America Tobacco (BAT) which controls over 80 per cent of the Nigerian cigarette market has continued to undermine the treaty by deliberate misinformation and illicit actions targeted at the youth.  For instance, in the last two months the company has held several secret smoking parties targeted at new smokers. Two of such parties were held in Ajegunle and Victoria Island, both in Lagos, and the company has announced plans to seize the opportunity of the upcoming yuletide to organise more.” 
   According to ERA, on June 15 this year the company had announced a position for Regulatory Affairs and External Communications Executive Staff to be based in Lagos. The job announcement which described a potential candidate as one who can “establish BAT as a trusted partner of regulators and a leading authority on tobacco control issues across Nigeria,” was said to have outlined that the company was looking for someone “to provide advocacy that ensure(s) that engagement is relevant to tobacco control thinking, both current and future in order to maximise transaction with stakeholders and demonstrate deep knowledge of tobacco control in the real world.”

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Report accuses Big Tobacco of blocking treaty

By Ben Ezeamalu

Tobacco industry watchdog, Corporate Accountability International, and its allies, on Monday, released a report documenting widespread tobacco industry interference in the implementation of the global tobacco treaty (formally known as the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control).

The report’s release kicks off a string of grassroots actions in dozens of countries leading up to November’s treaty meeting in Punta del Este, Uruguay. At stake are nearly 200 million lives - the number of lives the World Health Organisation projects would be spared by 2050 if the treaty takes full effect - and the tobacco industry interference remains the single greatest obstacle to this objective. During this year’s 10th International Week of Resistance to Tobacco Transnationals, which began on Monday, the anti-tobacco groups say that their actions will expose industry obstructionism in countries around the globe which they hope would build momentum going into the November meeting.

Showing solidarity

The Week is also an opportunity for the global community to speak out in solidarity with Uruguay; Philip Morris International is suing Uruguay for implementing a treaty provision requiring stronger cigarette pack health warning labels. “Big Tobacco first tried to bully the global community out of advancing this treaty. Now it’s attempting to bully countries out of enforcing it,” said Gigi Kellett, the Director of Corporate Accountability International’s campaign Challenging Big Tobacco. “Still, our findings indicate that the industry’s resolve to defy the law is matched only by civil society’s resolve to end industry intimidation,” he said.

The report cited some of the tactics used by the tobacco industry to undermine treaty implementation to include the donation of $200 million to the Columbian government by Philip Morris International following the adoption of treaty implementation legislation to “address areas of mutual interest;” the appointment of a former British American Tobacco executive, Kenneth Clarke, as Justice Minister - he would oversee a recent lawsuit by BAT and its competitors against a new law cracking down on tobacco product displays; and engaging in a string of lawsuits regarding tobacco product displays, packaging, and health warning labels from Australia and the Philippines to Norway. All of these tactics, the groups say, are in direct defiance of the treaty, specifically its Article 5.3, which deems such industry interference to be in fundamental conflict with the treaty’s public health aims.

Slow progress

The report also finds that Article 5.3 is being used to great effect globally to insulate the treaty’s implementation against the tobacco industry. Action ranges from Mauritius becoming the first country to ban all tobacco industry “corporate social responsibility” schemes to Panama’s prohibiting government agencies and officials from accepting tobacco industry contributions. “Those countries, large and small, that refuse to be intimidated, are emboldening others to follow their lead,” said Philip Jakpor, spokesperson for Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria and the Network for Accountability of Tobacco Transnationals (NATT).

“The success of the November treaty meeting will be measured by the number of Parties that return to their countries with a plan to root out industry interference. Millions of lives are on the line,” Mr Jakpor said. In Nigeria, the Senate Committee on Health held a Public Hearing on the Tobacco Control Bill in July last year and the bill is still awaiting passage into law at senate’s plenary. Each year, tobacco kills more than five million people and 80 percent of those deaths are in low-income countries, where treaty implementation represents some of the first efforts at tobacco control.

One hundred and seventy-one countries have ratified the global tobacco treaty since its entry into force in 2005. Today, the treaty protects more than 87 percent of the world’s population.

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BREAKING NEWS!!! …..BAT So scared, so stupid!

With over thirty mean looking bouncers and AK 47 wielding policemen, BAT went ahead to organise its Golden Experience:The Real Gold Is  Inside  smoking  party at the Oceanview Restaurant,Lagos on Friday September 24.

With a huge sense of relief a worried BAT executive and scores of the bouncers shouted “we have seen him”, when they “captured” the  man who held the IV for Bamidele Lawal. Bamidele Lawal”s IV was the one we placed on this blog few days before the event.

Little did they realise that allowing somebody to use that IV was a decoy for the smooth passage of ERA/FoEN  volunteers and journalists that attended the event.

More very soon….

To the smoking party team, lets gets cracking for Rothmans in December!!!!!!!

BAT defiant on ''kids'' smoking parties in Nigeria