VENEZUELA:
Cracking Down Hard on Tobacco Advertising
Humberto Márquez

CARACAS, (IPS) - Cigarette advertising, which has been banned on TV and radio in Venezuela for a quarter century and had already virtually disappeared from the print media, will now be prohibited in movie theatres and on billboards, as an effort to combat smoking among the young.

Other new regulations bar cigarette vending machines, and ratify the ban on sales of cigarettes to minors and on sales of tobacco near schools and in parks, cinemas and theatres, said Health Minister Francisco Armada.

All outdoor advertising of tobacco products has been prohibited, and ads will only be allowed in bars, night clubs and other adult entertainment facilities, as long as one-third of the ad consists of a warning of the dangers of smoking.

The ban also covers the distribution of free cigarette samples, still a common practice in shopping malls and family entertainment centres, where young women can be seen handing out cigarettes free of charge as part of a marketing technique.

Armada said the measures respond to the World Health Organisation (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which went into effect a year ago.

The treaty, which has been signed by 168 countries, is legally binding in the 61 nations that have ratified it. They are now under the obligation to adopt concrete measures, such as ban tobacco advertising, force cigarette makers to increase the size of health warnings so that they cover at least 30 percent of the package, restrict or prohibit smoking in a broad range of public places, and reduce or eliminate sponsorship of sports events by tobacco companies.

The first session of the Conference of the Parties to the tobacco convention ends on Friday in Geneva, Switzerland. It began on Feb. 6.

In Venezuela, a country of 26.8 million people, "we are seeking to strengthen health policies against the cause of death of 16,000 people a year," said Armada.

"We are going to do everything we can to protect the young and to avoid an increase in the number of smokers, as well as the exposure of passive smokers, while promoting programmes to help addicts quit smoking," added the official.

Eva Martínez, with the education department of the Venezuelan Red Cross, is in favour of a renovation of educational and public awareness campaigns and told IPS that according to Red Cross figures, more than 1,100 women and 1,600 men die every year as a result of tobacco use.

But pulmonologist María Tagliapietra told IPS that "there is no registry of people who have fallen ill or died from smoking, because in many cases the diagnosis is asthma."

WHO estimates that some five million people a year die of tobacco-related causes worldwide, and that the cost of treatment of related diseases like lung cancer runs to around 200 billion dollars annually.

According to Consumers International, the health costs of tobacco use absorb between six and 15 percent of health budgets in Latin America.

Armada said studies would be carried out on the impact of the new measures in Venezuela once outdoor advertising completely disappears, three months from now.

Efforts to fight tobacco use in Venezuela began under Christian Democratic president Luis Herrera Campins (1979-1984), who prohibited radio and television advertising for alcohol and tobacco. But advertising continued on billboards and in places like movie theatres and bus stops.

Later a requirement was introduced for all cigarette packages and advertising to carry the warning: "It has been determined that cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health". But the labels were typically in tiny print.

Fifteen years ago, then mayor of Caracas Claudio Fermín, a social democrat, imposed a smoking ban in a variety of public places and forced restaurants to create separate smoking and non-smoking sections. These measures were later adopted nationwide.

A new milestone was reached two years ago, under the administration of left-leaning President Hugo Chávez, when all cigarette manufacturers were obliged to include colour photographs or drawings on the back of cigarette packages portraying skulls, diseased gums and lungs, foetuses placed at risk by smoking during pregnancy, corpses, and even teddy bears suffering the effects of cigarette smoke.

"For years we defended the stance that the government must decide whether or not manufacturing and selling cigarettes is a legal activity, and that if so, it must allow it to go ahead freely, but this line of defence has been defeated," a tobacco industry executive commented to IPS.

"Now we are just pushing for clear rules and the ability to continue offering sources of employment," he added.

Bigott, one of Venezuela's two large cigarette manufacturers, has stressed that it provides jobs for 80,000 people in its factories - which have a total production capacity of 90 million units a day û and 45,000 sales outlets, while it purchases the crops raised by 297 tobacco farmers in eight of the country's 23 states.

In addition, the company emphasises that it is a major contributor to the state coffers, to which it provides some 240 million dollars annually, since taxes account for 53.7 percent of what the consumer pays for cigarettes û roughly the cost of 11 out of every 20 cigarettes in a package.

In view of the considerable tax income generated by cigarette sales, the Treasury Department has taken an extra tough stand against cigarette smuggling. According to the department's customs fraud unit, the country loses at least 60 million dollars a year as a result of contraband cigarettes, which do not always meet national quality standards and are sold on the informal market.

Ricardo, 19, a first-year university student, believes that the frighteningly graphic images on packages "have an influence on making people smoke less. My friends turn the packages over so they don't have to look at them. But high school students at parties continue to try smoking, because they are just as curious as ever," he told IPS.

Consuelo Ramírez, who is nearing 40 and a hardened smoker, takes a light-hearted approach to the subject.

"When I was 14, the advertisements with beautiful people smoking on the beach convinced me that I should do it. I could buy cigarettes everywhere with no restrictions," she laughs through puffs of smoke

"Now the government is persecuting me on the grounds that I'm killing myself and I'm a criminal, and I'm also doing irreparable damage to my children. I should sue the government," she quips.