Press Release WHO/38
30 May 2000

TOBACCO KILLS – DON'T BE DUPED,SAYS WHO ON WORLD NO TOBACCODAY
It is sold as a lifestyle, as the taste of freedom and sophistication. Children,
sometimes as young as nine, are lured into the tobacco habit by aggressive
advertising and marketing. Everyday, 11,000 people die due to a tobacco-relateddisease. Most of today's 1.2 billion smokers started before they were eighteen.
"Tobacco advertisements talk to us from our streets, films, radios, television sets
and sports events. Everywhere our children and we turn, there is something or
someone telling you to smoke," says WHO Director-General Dr Gro Harlem
Brundtland on World No Tobacco Day (WNTD), 31 May 2000. "What makes all
this unacceptable and treacherous is that this dangerous and addictive product issold to youth and adolescents as an assertion of their freedom to choose."
The Director-General's Prize for outstanding contributions to tobacco control goes
this year to His Majesty the King of Thailand, who has helped to ensure that
Thailand has some of the most progressive tobacco control laws in the world.
Thailand, which is the venue for this year's global WNTD events, is one of a few
countries that very early on understood the tobacco problem in all its dimensions –from the death and disease burden to economics, trade and public policy. On May
31, Thai children will launch a global signature campaign calling for global
advertising bans.
The multi-country, multi-language "Tobacco Kills – Don't be Duped" campaign has
been endorsed by celebrities such as super model Christy Turlington, international
test cricketeer Imran Khan, and the industry whistleblower Dr. Jeffery Wigandwhose struggle was portrayed in the Hollywood movie the "Insider".
Events on May 31, focusing on the same theme, are being held in various places
around the world. In Geneva, home to WHO, local authorities will lead an"animalcade" – parade of animals and children - that will make its way through thecity. In California, local tobacco activists are teaming up with their counterparts
from African countries to focus on the health and economic impact of tobacco. InIndia, the world's first Hindi website on tobacco will be formally launched, andRussian speakers will get reliable tobacco information from a website launched inUkraine.
With a focus this year on the entertainment and sports industries that are the prime
vehicles for carrying tobacco messages around the globe for their largely young
audience, the WHO seeks to make the case for a global ban on advertising andpromotion of tobacco. "Our decision to focus on the entertainment, film and sports
industry is a carefully thought one. It is unconventional and unorthodox, but that isprecisely why we have chosen it – the tobacco industry strikes where people leastsuspect it to be," says Dr Brundtland.
A global advertising ban is one of the early protocols that will be negotiated byWHO's 191 Member States working on the Framework Convention on Tobacco
Control (FCTC). The decision to highlight this initiative early in the FCTC process
is no accident – it is a reaction to calls from the entire WHO family seeking anurgent response to a global menace.
"Protecting children and youth from tobacco is a battle with a well-financed andsupremely well-organised adversary," says Dr Derek Yach, WHO Executive
Director in charge of the Tobacco Free Initiative. "If we expect young people toresist tobacco use, it is essential that we provide governments with meaningful,effective alternatives to becoming accessories to tobacco promotion."

For further information, journalists can contact Dr Derek Yach, WHO Executive Director in chargeof Tobacco Free Initiative, WHO, Geneva. Telephone (+41 22) 791 2736. Fax (+41 22) 791 4832.
Email: yachd@who.int

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