The eighth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP8) stayed true to form with sessions conducted in the absence of members of the media or industry. It can’t be said that this was a surprise, nor was a previous pledge from past sessions to live-stream the proceedings this year getting promptly thrown out at the very beginning of COP8 a shocker, either. What might have (and, actually, should have) raised a few eyebrows is yet another new global strategy coming out of COP8, the Medium-Term Strategic Framework (MTSF), which aims to scale up the tobacco control agenda over the next few years and “prevent further interference by tobacco industry” in public health policies.
How is it that a strategy – actually, a global strategy – can be determined in such a one-sided manner, without objectively basing said determination on facts and information from both the anti-tobacco and tobacco industry sides? Why is it that open and transparent dialogue between involved parties is desirable in pretty much any situation except when one of the said parties happens to be the tobacco industry? Or is it only acceptable in this case to act in a way equivalent to a child sticking fingers in its ears, chanting, “nah-nah-nah-nah-nah”, refusing to listen to any reason?
The industry largely gets portrayed by anti-tobacco and public health organizations as the selfish, up-to-no-good villain who has no chance of redemption and can only be expected to continue to come up with nefarious ideas that will harm people’s health. The shining hero in this scenario is, of course, those in the anti-tobacco and public health sectors, with the general public the hapless victim waiting to be rescued.
The American Lung Association’s (ALA) annual “State of Tobacco Control” report for 2018 revealed nearly all states, with the exception of Oklahoma, have diverted money received from the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) – which requires tobacco companies to pay out annually in perpetuity to bankroll tobacco control and cancer research programs – to their general funds, with their anti-tobacco programs underfunded and neglected, as less than 3% of the Master Settlement funds went to such programs.
So, if tobacco companies have been dutifully paying their share in good faith that the money will be used for tobacco control and cancer research but said funds appear to have been misappropriated, who’s the bad guy now?
Nattira Medvedeva
Associate Editor