|
SUGGESTED
TALKING POINTS
| Go back to general directions |
Please find
below some suggested talking points. In addition, we encourage groups
involved with Essential Action's Global Partnerships for Tobacco Control
to:
1) Emphasize
the importance of putting public health before trade
interests -- as the trade language in the draft treaty is especially
bad
and if not strengthened, could jeopardize many other issues covered
in
the treaty, e.g. advertising bans.
2) Cite
specific examples of outrageous tobacco industry (e.g. Philip
Morris!) conduct abroad. Ask your global partner for recent examples
and/or search
the GPTC website
3) Include
a few words about why you think international tobacco control
is important and how it benefits the U.S. For ideas see: Top
10 Reasons International Tobacco Control is Relevant to the U.S.
4)
Mention your global partnership, if you have one. You may want to
ask your partner to send a brief statement (re: the importance of the
U.S. supporting a strong FCTC) to incorporate into your own.
Below are
some suggested talking points for your testimony (provided by Campaign
for Tobacco-Free Kids). Please feel free to use any or all of these in
your testimony:
- The
protection and promotion of public health should be the sole basis for
all of the positions of the U.S. negotiating team to the FCTC.
- The United
States should support a strong, enforceable treaty that holds tobacco
companies accountable and supports governments in their effort to protect
and promote public health.
- The FCTC
should elevate concern for public health above trade concerns, as many
countries have argued during the negotiations.
- The FCTC
must explicitly acknowledge that tobacco products are uniquely harmful
and that concern for public health should override commercial considerations.
In addition, a "non-interference" clause should be added to
the FCTC to prevent countries from promoting tobacco use in other countries
or seeking to undermine other nations' tobacco control laws.
- Tobacco
advertising is a prime 'vector' of tobacco related disease, and its
elimination could reduce tobacco consumption substantially - saving
millions of lives in the 21st Century. The FCTC should endorse the only
known effective policy: a total ban on all direct and indirect ban on
advertising. The FCTC should also include a ban on cross-border advertising,
an international issue which could only be dealt with in the FCTC. The
text should not endorse ineffective approaches, such as partial restrictions
or youth-only measures.
- The FCTC
should set a floor, rather than a ceiling, for national efforts. Obligations
within the FCTC should not be framed in such a way that they could become
barriers to the enactment or implementation of stronger measures.
- The FCTC
should reverse the perverse incentives that tobacco companies and wholesalers
currently have to facilitate cigarette smuggling. Appropriate measures
would include the development of a liability regime to hold companies
responsible and the launching of investigations and legal action aimed
at those orchestrating smuggling.
- The FCTC
should recognize that exposure to second-hand smoke represents a serious
and preventable health risk to nonsmokers, and should prohibit smoking
in places of employment and public gathering.
- The FCTC
should contain a clear commitment to devoting no less than 50% of the
principal display panels of cigarette packet to health warnings and
consumer information. Packs should not be required to indicate 'sale
prohibited to minors' as this would have the perverse effect of making
smoking seem more 'grown up' and thus attractive to young people.
- The U.S.
should support an outright ban on the use of misleading descriptors
such as 'low-tar' and 'light' and 'mild'. The U.S. National Cancer Institute
has already determined that these terms have misled smokers into believing
that such cigarettes are less harmful, and that this deception constitutes
an "urgent public health issue". This should be reflected
in the FCTC.
Essential
Action
Global Partnerships for Tobacco Control
P.O. Box 19405 ~ Washington,
DC 20036
Tel: +1 202-387-8030 ~ Fax: +1 202-234-5176
Email: tobacco@essential.org
www.essentialaction.org/tobacco
|