South Africa: Report Challenges Tobacco Industry's Advertising Claims

Source from:  Business Day (Johannesburg) 15 August 2008 08/18/2008

Forcing tobacco companies to scale back on advertising leads to a significant decline in smoking, new research shows. The finding is important as it challenges the tobacco industry's assertion that advertising serves to make consumers aware of different brands and does not directly encourage them to smoke. Worldwide, an increasing number of countries are introducing regulations to control or ban tobacco advertising, in line with their commitments to the World Health Organisation (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control -- an international treaty that seeks to reduce the harm caused by tobacco products. In 2005, tobacco caused 5,4- million deaths, or an average of one death every six seconds, according to the WHO, which predicts the annual death toll will reach 8-million by 2030. The research, published in the peer review Journal of Health Economics, shows that the introduction of comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising reduced per capita consumption 23,5% in developing countries between1990 and 2005 , while partial bans cut per capita consumption 13,6%. However, the effects were much less dramatic in richer countries, where controlling advertising led to a 6,7% drop in per capita consumption. "Developing country consumers are far more sensitive to advertising, because tobacco advertising has much greater prominence," said the paper's author Even Blecher, a researcher at the University of Cape Town's Health Economics Unit. "If you walk down a street in Nairobi, all you see is tobacco advertising," he said. "In rich countries, a lot of products are advertised heavily and tobacco ads get lost among them." Blecher suggested advertising might also have had a less significant effect on tobacco consumption in rich countries, as their consumers are better informed about the dangers of smoking. Many developing countries still permit tobacco advertising without health warnings, he said. Blecher advocate s a total ban on tobacco advertising, saying the limited ban in place in SA, allows the industry to exploit the loopholes in the law. "If you ban one media, the industry moves its resources -- it becomes marginally less effective, but it still has an effect," he said. The Tobacco Products Control Amendment Bill, which is before the National Council of Provinces, proposes further restrictions on advertising, only permitting those at the point of sale and in trade communication. The new laws also propose introducing graphic picture warnings of the health dangers of tobacco, raising the minimum age for tobacco sales to 18 and, banning sales near schools. Enditem