In a tobacco shop, in Hédé-Bazouges (Ille-et-Vilaine), January 2, 2024 (AFP/Archives/Damien MEYER)
Panama is hosting the 10th world conference on the fight against tobacco from Monday, in a context where manufacturers are trying to attract more and more users, particularly among young people, with new, highly addictive products.
Delegates from more than 180 countries will participate in this conference which will look at tobacco advertising and new products, such as electronic cigarettes, which are very fashionable among young people.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), tobacco currently kills more than eight million people per year worldwide, including 1.3 million people exposed to passive smoking.
Experts believe that the fight against smoking is not being carried out with the importance it deserves. “Smoking causes a lot of damage and receives relatively little attention,” Ricardo Fabrega, former Chilean deputy health minister, told AFP.
The dean of the Faculty of Health at the University of Santo Tomás de Santiago also denounces the existence of “an industry specialized in encouraging consumption at a very early age.”
According to the WHO, the tobacco industry targets minors with new, highly addictive products.
The number of adults who use tobacco around the world has steadily declined in recent years, the Geneva-based organization noted in January.
In 2022, around one in five adults in the world smoked or consumed tobacco derivatives, compared to one in three twenty years previously, the organization recalled.
– Lobbyism –
But even if the number of smokers has continued to decrease, she estimates that the objective of a 30% reduction in consumption between 2010 and 2025 cannot be achieved.
Decline in tobacco consumption worldwide (AFP/Cléa PÉCULIER)
According to Ricardo Fabrega, among the measures necessary to reduce tobacco consumption are an increase in taxes, but also the restriction and regulation of advertising, the limitation of consumption in public spaces and educational establishments, health, work or sport.
On the eve of the conference, the conference secretariat said it “notes with concern that some parties have been contacted by representatives of the tobacco industry and other industries to offer technical support and travel assistance, including consultants.
On its website, it highlights the “inherent and irreconcilable conflict between the interests of the tobacco industry and those of public health policy.”
The tenth meeting of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) was scheduled for November 2023, but was postponed due to protests that largely paralyzed Panama for several weeks demanding the closure of a mine of copper.
After the conclusion of the meeting, the third follow-up conference of the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products (MOP3) will begin, with the participation of almost 70 countries.
This protocol, in force since September 2018, is part of the framework convention and aims to put an end to the illicit manufacturing and smuggling of tobacco products.
Both meetings will be held in a convention center located on the edge of the Panama Canal.
© 2024 AFP
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