Posted on 02/19/2003 7:17:52 AM PST by new cruelty
More than 190 countries yesterday began the sixth and final round of negotiations on an international tobacco control treaty designed to reverse the growing worldwide toll of deaths from smoking.
Gro Harlem Brundtland, director-general of the World Health Organisation, said the pact aimed to save "hundreds of millions of lives".
The proposed framework convention on tobacco control, the first-ever global health treaty negotiated by the WHO, will include binding rules on tobacco taxation, smuggling, advertising and promotion, product regulation, and smoking prevention and treatment.
It is due to be adopted by health ministers at the WHO's annual assembly in May.
"The tobacco epidemic is killing 4.9m people every year, which will double in 20 years if we do nothing to stop it", Dr Brundtland said. "We know that a big part of the solution lies in promoting stop-smoking programmes, raising tobacco taxes, increasing education, banning tobacco advertising and cracking down on smuggling."
According to WHO estimates based on current smoking trends, tobacco will soon be the world's biggest killer, causing more deaths than Aids, maternal mortality, car accidents, murder and suicide combined.
About 70 per cent of smoking-related deaths from lung cancer, heart disease, strokes and other diseases will occur in developing countries.
Anti-tobacco activists have criticised the draft treaty as too weak, claiming that the WHO has bowed to pressure from the US, Japan and Germany - home to powerful tobacco companies - to water down key provisions.
In particular, the draft does not require a total advertising ban although this has the support of the great majority of rich and poor countries.
However, Dr Brundtland, who set the tobacco talks in motion and has made them a priority of her five-year term in office, said the draft was "an excellent basis for an effective treaty". The text made clear that an advertising ban was the ultimate goal, and countries with planning bans could make binding declarations to that effect.
Luis Felipe de Seixas Corrêa, Brazil's Geneva ambassador and chairman of the talks, said what was wanted was "an effective convention that will make a difference" to public health, and that meant obtaining the support of a large number of key countries.
"Then we can go forward", he said.
It's not a restriction on smoking - it is a restriction on the rights of private property owners.
Restriction or forbidding smoking in public places, i.e. those owned and operated by the government (taxpayers), is one thing and you will find very few smokers disagreeing with it. But when you start venturing into the private property of others - entirely different story.
I'm not just talking about bars and restaurants - I'm talking all private business.
The totally idiotic smoking ban in the state of Delaware forbids smoking in any indoor enclosed area, and includes people's private homes if they run a business from home.
You have no right to enter private property - you are granted an invitation and you need abide by the rules of the host - if the host permits smoking and you don't like it you have the CHOICE to leave or stay. You do not have the right to remove that CHOICE from the owner of the property.
Please freemail me if you've got more information. Smoke'm if you've got'em.
Here's another couple. Smokers United
INFORMATION YOU NEED TO FIGHT BACK! This one has a lot of links at the bottom.
I don't think so,
How many "Unwilling" people die from gunshot wounds a year?
How many "Unwilling" people die from getting hit by a SUV?
How many "Unwilling" people die from getting hit by drunk drivers?
How many "Unwilling" people get stuck being crammed on a long trip on an airplane or bus stuck next to someone who is obsese because they eat to much fast/junk food?
Compare those to 2nd hand smoke where there is no evidence anyone has ever died from the smoke of someone else.
I suppose the rest of the conservative movement is happy to be identified in the public mind with this hideous and savage vice, but I am not. I'm sorry if I'm the only one who feels this way.
Well then you are not a conservative but a hypocrite to claim you are.
Conservatives are suppose to cherish and believe in freedom which I am sorry but freedom doesn't mean just the freedoms YOU like or will tolerate but freedom for all.
Could you please post cites for this ridiculous, bordering on mentally ill, statement?
"Then we can go forward", he said.
"Then we can go forward" with the control-freak Juggernaut.
Good paying jobs, no heavy lifting, the frisson of moral superiority in an issue that has no moral aspect.
Employment for the teat-suckers of life, the unproductive, the otherwise unemployable, the people left last in the pick-up games of their childhood because the other kids, though they couldn't quite put it into words, were repelled by them.
The new rulers.
I hope I have the opportunity to meet her when she's at the top of her game.
AIDS, TB and malaria kill 15,000 people a day, three-quarters of them in sub-Saharan Africa, and WHO worries about tobacco use, obesty and auto accidents, for God's sake! How many of the THREE BILLION people worldwide who don't have enough to eat worry about OBESTY? Six to fourteen MILLION of them, mostly children, will die of starvation each year according to WHO's own figures. During the four years WHO has been fiddling around with the Framework Convention on (People) Control, as many as 56 MILLION CHILDREN HAVE STARVED TO DEATH!
In 1995, 5 million babies born in developing countries died in their first month of life; 17 million died from infectious or parasitic diseases in 1996. In 1998 tuberculosis was the world's no. 1 killer of young women, according to WHO itself. Also according to WHO, AIDS is the number one killer in Africa; 3 million "children' under 24 were HIV positive in 1998--which is 6 young people being infected with the AIDS virus EVERY MINUTE, according to the U.N. Also according to WHO's own figures, there are 300-500 MILLION acute cases of malaria worldwide EACH YEAR.
Is there no one who will take on these hypocrital bastards? No one who's willing to look beyond the "smokescreen" and unmask the absolute cynical murder of millions of children worldwide because WHO is on a "moral rampage"?
I notice no mention was made in this article of WHO's "Healthy Countries Study" which shows Switzerland #8 on the scale of average HEALTHY lifespan (8 of the 10 top countries have the highest smoking rates). Japan is #1 while the nanny-heavy USA is way down at #24.
Does this apply to marijuana and prostitution too, or is smoking the only thing conveniently protected by the sacredness of private property?
I think I'm going to hurl. I need a Thomas Jefferson dart board, pronto!
The problem with the pro-tobacco, pro-smoking position is not whether or not it is a valid conservative position (it is depending on how you define "conservatism") but that it is presented as THE conservative position with no dissent allowed. And the tobacco industry's hooks in the Republican party (which began as an heir of puritanism) is a tragedy.
For my definition of conservatism, see my tag line.
And yes . . . I DO hate tobacco. I always have. And I always will. Are you "libertarian" enough to deal with that?
I suppose the rest of the conservative movement is happy to be identified in the public mind with this hideous and savage vice, but I am not. I'm sorry if I'm the only one who feels this way.
Well then you are not a conservative but a hypocrite to claim you are.
There you have it, ladies and gentlemen--proof that liberals aren't the only ones with a "party line!"
Have you told all those Southern Baptists and Pentecostals that they can't be considered conservatives because they're against smoking?
Oh, so you're "pro-choice," huh? Anything else you believe people should have the "right" to "choose?"
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