CSU 05/2010: SMOKING PREVALENCE IN 17 COUNTRIES

Wednesday, 13th of January 2010

Tobacco Control, an online BMJ journal, should be required reading for anyone trying to reduce the prevalence of tobacco use.

This report comes from the Americas (Colombia, Mexico, and the United States), Asia/Pacific (People's Republic of China, Japan, and New Zealand), Europe (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and the Ukraine), and the Mid-East and Africa (Israel, Lebanon, Nigeria, South Africa).

Poverty is not a bar to the tobacco companies, especially where they can sell their product by the stick and where taxation is light. It is a strange world where governments show more sympathy for multinationals than for the health of their own people.

Can any Nigerian explain the success of tobacco control in that country? Can any South African explain why their government has not yet removed cigarette dispensing machines from public places, instead simply stating that minors should not purchase from this machine?

Full text is at http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2009/12/04/tc.2009.032474.full.pdf