14. Other Work on Toxic-Tobacco

Please sign our OnLine Petition.

Created and copyrighted by Stephen R. McInerny II, 1987

Comments on the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control

By the Toxic-Tobacco Law Coalition
Solicited by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

We strongly encourage the representatives of the United States to bring the following points to the international discussions of the Framework Convention (international treaty) on Tobacco Control:

• Multinational toxic-tobacco companies will expand their unconscionable predatory behavior to wherever they can increase profits. Their invasion of our global neighbors is not the result of being under siege in the United States from increased excise taxes, clean indoor air legislation and liability suits.
• The toxic-tobacco industry has no interest in public health, otherwise they would immediately desist producing, marketing and distributing their lethal products worldwide for consumption by adults and children.
• If a new business were to apply today for a corporate charter in the United States in order to make products that were as addictive, injurious and lethal as toxic-tobacco products, its application would be denied.
• Because over one billion adults and children are currently addicted to toxic-tobacco products worldwide is no reason to assist billions more in becoming addicted by permitting corporations to continue making and aggressively marketing and distributing their products into every corner of the Earth.
• An endgame for the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control is needed. It should be prohibiting corporations in the signatory nations from making, marketing and importing all toxic-tobacco products (e.g., cigarettes, smokeless tobacco).
• An adjustment period (e.g., 5, 10, 20 years) between the enactment of the Framework Convention and its implementation is necessary in order to enable stakeholders like farmers and other support industries to shift to legal businesses, and enable governments to find alternative sources of tax revenue. During the adjustment period vigorous efforts must continue to decrease youth and adult use of toxic-tobacco and corporate marketing of toxic-tobacco.
• Setting a date certain after which legal, uncontrolled production will cease is preferable to maintaining an unfettered system of legal production.
• After an adjustment period, government or government controlled stores will be the only retail venues for toxic-tobacco.
• Use of toxic-tobacco products by adults or children should not be considered criminal behavior. Governments, however, should have the authority to determine where combustible products that create environmental tobacco smoke may be used.
• Every country should have the right to adopt measures similar to the Toxic-Tobacco Law (Gerace, TA. Journal of Public Health Policy. 1999;20:394-407), proposed federal legislation in the United States that would:
  
  
  1. Prohibit corporations in the United States from making, marketing and importing all toxic-tobacco products,
  2. Go into effect five years after enactment (current proposal five years) giving all stakeholders (e.g., farmers, taxing jurisdictions) time to adjust,
  3. Permit adults during the adjustment period freedom to get products from their usual sources, and
  4. Allow adults to be "free" to consume products that they import or buy from "federal stores" after the Law is implemented."
  
  
• Unlike Prohibition, which sought to stop Americans from consuming alcohol, the Toxic-Tobacco Law does not seek to restrict consumption by adults.
• Please refrain from uncritically accepting the toxic-tobacco industry's line that restricting their activities will automatically create a horrible "black market" with attendant crime and other visions of Prohibition.
• "Black markets" occur under two conditions: (1) when desired products are not legally available and (2) when "black market" products can be bought much cheaper than legally produced products.
• With the proposed Toxic-Tobacco Law as a model, neither condition for a black market need arise under the Framework Convention. During an adjustment period adults would be able to get products from their usual sources. After the Convention is implemented they could obtain products from "federal stores" or import them.
• The combined benefits of ending mass marketing, distribution, easy access by children, and reducing morbidity and mortality from heart and lung disease and cancer will far outweigh the hypothetical costs of the "black market" created by the toxic-tobacco industry.
• Toxic-tobacco industry storytellers need to explain where these "black market" products would come from, how enormous amounts of contraband would enter countries undetected, and why adults would use a "black market" when they would be able to obtain products from legal "federal stores".
• Please stop using the terms "Big Tobacco", the "tobacco industry", "cigarette manufacturers" and the "five major tobacco companies". These terms are not descriptive. What does "Big Tobacco" mean anyway? Please replace these sanitized, positive terms with toxic-tobacco industry, toxic-tobacco companies etc. Tobacco should always be preceded by "toxic-" to help each generation learn to associate tobacco with the poison that it is, and to emphasize the urgency of stopping its production, marketing, distribution and sales as if it were simply a candy bar.
• The people of the United States, no longer willing to be victimized by the unconscionable predatory behavior of the toxic-tobacco industry that targets their children and aggressively promotes products that cause pain, disease and death to friends and family, should urge its own Congress to pass the Toxic-Tobacco Law, encourage other countries to consider its merits, and assist them in their efforts.

Expanding the Debate on a Future Without Tobacco

(Gerace, TA. 11th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health Abstracts. 2000;3:679)

Objective.   To determine whether there is interest in including the Toxic-Tobacco Law (Law), proposed US federal legislation, in the debate on how to reduce the worldwide use of tobacco by assessing responses to descriptions of the Law in mailings or in manuscripts submitted to journals.

Design, Setting and Participants.   Case study of (a) responses to mailings by 4 members of the Clinton Administration, 9 of the US Congress, 11 of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Tobacco Policy and Public Health, and 13 other tobacco control and health advocates and (b) responses of four journal editors and six reviewers to six submissions of manuscripts (May 1997-June 1999).

Main Outcome Measures.   Responsive response rates (i.e., made reference to the Law in a reply letter or e-mail) of "potentially interested groups," and nature and frequency of responses by journal editors and reviewers.

Results.   Four of 37 group members (10.8%) replied responsively; none were members of the Administration or Congress. Prior to acceptance, the manuscript was rejected five times, three times by the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH). Reviewers from AJPH stated that the Law could not be passed, would repeat Prohibition, and lead to a black market.

Conclusions.   Mailings appears to be an ineffective way to encourage "potentially interested groups" to expand the debate on reducing the use of tobacco. New ideas, however, can be entered into the debate via the public health policy literature but with difficulty. The possibility that these findings are idiosyncratic to the proposed Toxic-Tobacco Law demands caution against generalizing to more modest proposals.

Road to a Smoke-Free Fire Service for Florida: Policies and Progress

Abstract from Gerace, TA. Journal of Public Health Policy. 1990;11(2):206-217

In 1986 the Professional Fire Fighters of Florida (PFFF), a labor organization of 11,000 members, passed an unprecedented resolution to create a "smoke-free fire service." The PFFF's commitment arose from its (i) concern for the health of fire fighters, (ii) need to address the issue of smoking to protect the fire fighters' "Heart and Lung Law," and (iii) attempt to avert criticism of its proposed presumptive "Cancer Bill". In 1987 the PFFF gained support for its resolution from a council representing chiefs, fire instructors and inspectors, and volunteer fire fighters. Prior to the "smoke-free" resolution, one fire department in Florida required that new fire fighters be non-smokers. Since the resolution passed, 14 departments added this requirement. In 1989 the PFFF succeeded in getting a landmark bill passed requiring that new fire fighters in Florida be non-users of tobacco for at least one year prior to application. Important implications of the PFFF's efforts to create a "smoke-free fire service" are also discussed.