Three international trading organisations have rejected the latest proposals by the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, according to a press release from the International Tobacco Growers’ Association (see link below).
The latest is the Council of Ministers of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP), and this ‘follows calls by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the African Union (AU) to reject or put back these decisions on the grounds that they could cause major economic and social devastation to developing countries’. The proposed bans cover ingredients used to blend tobacco, but ‘the ban is being proposed despite WHO acknowledgments that products without ingredients are just as harmful as those with’.
I covered this story two days ago using reports from Zimbabwe and the Philippines, and also from the Framework Convention Alliance, a body supporting the FCTC. Most remarkably, although the FCA declares that the FCTC can claim to represent 89 per cent of the world’s population, they still declined to allow ITGA, representing an estimated 30 million tobacco growers, to participate in discussions.
Quite right that such bodies (councils of ministers) should reject policies that will mean that countless farmers in their respective countries will lose their livelihoods. The FCTC contains provisions for alternative sources of livelihood, but the ITGA hold that these are not feasible. Even if they were feasible, the exclusion of ITGA from talks on these issues is sufficient reason to reject their conclusions.
You can read more about the ITGA and its concerns on its website here. This site also includes an online petition.