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15.10.2014 Diaspora News

Tobacco Industry Front Group Attempts To Mislead Delegates, Stall Treaty Progress

By Vision For Alternative Development (VALD)
Tobacco Industry Front Group Attempts To Mislead Delegates, Stall Treaty Progress
15.10.2014 LISTEN

Press luncheon organized by Big Tobacco shill aims to derail public health to protect industry profits

MOSCOW— Today during the Sixth Conference of the Parties to the global tobacco treaty in Moscow, the International Tobacco Growers Association, (ITGA) a tobacco industry front group, held a press event and luncheon aimed at propagating doubt and misinformation to the media and treaty delegates.

The conference took place just blocks away from the World Trade Center Moscow, where the treaty meetings are being held (invitation here). ITGA's main supporters are global tobacco corporations like Philip Morris International, British American Tobacco,Imperial Tobacco International and Japan Tobacco International.

“Year after year, ITGA feigns concern for the farmers it claims to represent in order to block, stall and water down the lifesaving policies of the global tobacco treaty,” said John Stewart, Challenge Big Tobacco campaign director at Corporate Accountability International, “If ITGA were truly concerned with the wellbeing of tobacco farmers, it would support them in transitioning to traditional staple crops that feed and nourish people. This exploitation of farmers in the name of Big Tobacco profits must end.”

Historically, the tobacco industry has exploited farmers Ghana and around the world by encouraging them to cultivate tobacco leaves and then intentionally keeping prices too low to be profitable. These low prices, as well as unfair contracts that make farmers pay inflated prices for inputs, undermine farmers' bargaining power, causing them to fall into a cycle of debt that perpetuates poverty.

Around the world, the tobacco industry has engaged in sophisticated campaigns designed to shift attention away from its practice of purchasing tobacco produced by child workers and its role in keeping tobacco prices low. Cigarette makers and leaf companies exaggerate the impact of proven tobacco control policies on tobacco farmers, and misrepresent the goals of these policies, which are designed to protect public health and curb the six million deaths caused each year by tobacco use.

The global tobacco treaty, known formally as the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) came into force in 2005. To date, 178 countries and the European Union have become Parties to the treaty. It contains the world's most effective tobacco control and corporate accountability measures—estimated to save 200 million lives by 2050 if fully implemented.

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