WHO Seeks to Curb Growth of Tobacco Sales

Cigarette makers who have come under increasing restrictions in the United States and other countries should not be allowed to expand elsewhere, the head of the World Health Organization said Sunday.

Dr. Hiroshi Nakajima, director-general of WHO, at the opening of the 10th International Conference on Smoking or Health in Beijing, said he is satisfied with the results of recent lawsuits against cigarette makers in the United States. He said the admission by the Durham, N.C.-based Liggett Group that tobacco is addictive marks the end of an industry “conspiracy of silence.”

“However,” Nakajima said, “we must demand that the large multinational tobacco companies that experience controls in their home countries are not free to expand into markets in other countries.”

The rapid spread of smoking in developing countries is one of the most prominent concerns of anti-tobacco activists and a theme of the conference, a weeklong gathering of 1,500 health experts from more than 70 countries.

The activists say tobacco companies are stepping up marketing in the Third World to compensate for stagnating sales in richer countries.

WHO wants governments to adopt rules to restrict the international tobacco trade, Nakajima said.

“We are fighting not against a virus,” he said, “but against an industry that profits from addicting individuals who are often killed by their habitual use.”

Participants at the conference warned that because of the growing number of smokers, the annual tobacco-related death toll could rise from 3.5 million this year to as high as 10 million by 2025.

By that point, the annual smoking death toll will exceed that from AIDS, tuberculosis, automobile accidents, homicide and suicide combined, said Alan Lopez, director of the WHO Program on Substance Abuse.

China, the host of the conference, is in the midst of a high-profile campaign to get its 320 million smokers to quit. The country suffers an estimated 700,000 smoking-related deaths a year--the highest of any country.

Smoking is banned on Chinese trains, planes and in public buildings, and hundreds of officials have signed pledges not to smoke or to let others light up in their offices.

“Health is the prerequisite of the development of mankind,” Chinese President Jiang Zemin said in a speech to conference participants.

But in a twist that illustrates the complicated political status of tobacco, the Chinese government also owns the world’s biggest tobacco company. It produces 1.7 trillion cigarettes a year--three times the total U.S. output--and supplies 10% of state revenues.

Meanwhile Sunday, a lead negotiator on the proposed U.S. tobacco settlement said problems over the deal’s limits on the government’s ability to regulate nicotine have been resolved.

Critics of the agreement, along with President Clinton, have said the Food and Drug Administration’s authority over nicotine must be strengthened if the deal is to be approved.

Mississippi Atty. Gen. Michael Moore said the issue has been renegotiated with the industry.

“We are now in agreement with the strongest language that will be agreed to by the White House,” Moore said on ABC’s “This Week.”

But White House officials were unavailable to confirm Moore’s account. Moore has said previously that the FDA issue was nearing resolution, only to have White House officials express doubt.

Under the deal, tobacco companies would accept advertising restrictions and other curbs in exchange for protection from smokers’ lawsuits.

Clinton, who is still reviewing the agreement, is expected to announce his objections early next month.