Resist Tobacco Firms' Suits

An official of the World Health Organization (WHO) has called on governments to be firm against efforts of big tobacco companies opposing new laws that may affect their sales. “Tobacco is the only industry that produces products to make huge profits and at the same time damage the health and kill their consumers,” said WHO director-general Margaret Chan during a public health meeting in Geneva earlier this week. “How can we as an international community allow big tobacco to harass countries?” Chan said. In her speech during a unity call in Geneva, Switzerland, Chan noted that big tobacco companies have been harassing countries like Australia, the United States, Uruguay and Norway for coming up with measures aimed at reducing smoking and fighting smoking-related diseases. Chan made the unity call in Geneva in response to the move by a large tobacco manufacturing company to sue Canberra, Australia’s capital city, after the Australian parliament passed a law that bans logos from cigarette packs and only allowing use plain packaging for tobacco products. The law was passed last November 21. According to WHO, the tobacco firm has also taken legal action against the United States Food and Drug Administration for supposedly “violating the right to free speech” after the agency required companies to print graphic health warnings on cigarette packs. Locally, two security guards filed a case against the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) after they were apprehended for smoking in public. The two security guards were allegedly helped and encouraged by tobacco companies in filing the case. The new Australian law will begin the prohibition of the use of logos on cigarette packs on December 2012 and will require cigarette manufacturers to print their brand names in small, uniform fonts on olive green packages. Pictures of diseases associated with smoking should also be printed on the package. Meanwhile, a spokesperson from the tobacco firm reportedly said the Switzerland-based tobacco giant was “left with no option” but to take legal action against the Australian government because the newly passed Australian law was “illegal.” But her statement was opposed by Simon Chapman, a professor in Public Health at the University of Sydney saying that the target of the new Australian law is not adult smokers but children.