The theme of this panel could not be more timely.
Since 2003, when the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was adopted, circumstances around the world have changed dramatically.
But there are some things – both good and bad – that have not changed.
The WHO FCTC has achieved close to universal membership, with 182 Parties, representing 90% of the world’s population.
And we are seeing the positive results of the broad acceptance of the treaty as Parties advance in their implementation of its measures.
We can all take heart in the fact that global prevalence of tobacco use has decreased from 33.3% in 2000 to 24.9% in 2015 and it is expected to drop to around 20.9% by 2025.
In 2018, for first time, the absolute number of male tobacco users decreased – joining the continuous decline in the number of female users.
Projections indicate that both of these figures will continue to fall.
However, greater effort will be needed to achieve a 30% reduction in the prevalence of tobacco use – but we are on the right track.
To further the work of the Convention, the Protocol for the Elimination of Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products was developed and adopted by the Conference of the Parties to the WHO FCTC, and today the Protocol boasts 63 Parties –– and counting.
But then, the COVID-19 pandemic arrived.
We have repeated this word so often during the last year and a half that it has almost become a cliché. But the pandemic did not arrive in a vacuum; it landed among many other pre-existing problems – like noncommunicable diseases and the tobacco epidemic itself – interacting with them to create a tragic syndemic, with often worse outcomes for both smokers and people living with NCDs.
And yet, during this period of global suffering, the tobacco industry has had no qualms about using so-called Corporate Social Responsibility activities to take advantage of the vulnerable situation in many countries.
This predatory activity by the tobacco industry isn’t new.
As long ago as 1929, the industry launched a campaign called Torches of Freedom, in which women were paid to smoke and march at the Easter Parade in New York City, theoretically to support women’s rights.
But it was a thinly veiled attempt to sell more tobacco.
During the 1950s, after an article linked smoking with lung cancer, the tobacco industry developed its “Tobacco Strategy” to fight science with more science – but science of the industry’s own creation, with research funded and promoted to create the appearance of uncertainty.
Since then, the industry has used many other strategies to sow doubt by promising safer cigarettes, adding filters, and by launching “light” and “mild” cigarettes.
Today, the newest marketing strategy from the tobacco industry is based on its own “harm reduction” narrative, and it is suggesting that – somehow – the WHO FCTC is no longer “fit for purpose”.
These are coupled with direct attacks on the tobacco control community, including WHO and the WHO FCTC Secretariat, suggesting that we have wicked intentions and want to condemn people to death.
It would be a funny argument, if it were not coming from an industry whose products have killed a billion people over the last century.
While harm reduction is a well-known public health strategy, the tobacco industry’s harm reduction narrative is a continuation of the industry’s history of manipulation and deception, and it is intended – among other things –
to “divide and conquer” those of us in the tobacco control community.
It is a calculated approach. A Reuters news investigation revealed a 2014 internal presentation by Philip Morris International about its Corporate Affairs Strategy, hailing as good news that “on e-cigarettes and other reduced risk products…there are divisions within the anti-tobacco movement…”.
I have three main messages today. First, there are far more things that unite those of us in the tobacco control community, than separate us.
We all know that the WHO FCTC is the key to ending the tobacco epidemic.
The decisions of the Conference of the Parties to the WHO FCTC have used the bedrock of the Convention to provide Parties with a broad list of options to deal with the new nicotine products, from a total ban to appropriate regulation, according to the public health objectives of each Party.
And the Conference of Parties will keep following the development of the science in order to guide Parties in this respect.
But when we argue among ourselves, we are simply playing into the hands of the tobacco industry.
Second, the WHO FCTC is the solution that will lead to the end of the tobacco epidemic.
It is an evidence-based treaty, grounded in science and human rights.
And its objective is equally as valid today as it was in 2003.
Comprehensive implementation of this cornerstone of public health has produced the hard-fought gains I mentioned earlier and brings us ever closer to ending the scourge of tobacco dependency.
And through the decisions of the Conference of the Parties.
– representing all countries that are Party to the treaty
– the WHO FCTC is constantly updated, ensuring that its measures continue to meet future challenges.
Over 130 Parties have participated in each of the last three sessions of the Conference of the Parties, further reinforcing the sovereign resolve that underpins and strengthens the treaty and its aims.
Finally, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, tobacco control is more important than ever to keep people healthy and to ensure more resilient communities to confront this and any future pandemic.
Tobacco control, including funds raised through increased tobacco taxation,
has to be an integral part of “building back better”.
We do have the right tools to win the battle against the tobacco epidemic.
We must only remember who we are, where we have come from and where we are going.
And we must not waver until our collective goal is reached.
Thank you.