Tobacco Documents Online

11 TRANSLATION from Spanish ~ 1 REF.N 1-60/mr r. • n (o EZ UniversaZ, Tuesday January 10, 1989 - VENEZUELA THE SMOKING HABIT PERSISTS IN SPITE OF THE WARNINGS Twenty-five years after it was determined that the cigarette was a cause of cancer, 55 million Americans are still smoking and 300,000 persons die each year from diseases linked with smoking. CHICAGO, January 9, (Reuter) - The United States Surgeon Gen- eral will release Wednesday the annual report on Cigarettes and Health, 25 years after his predecessor presented the historic re- port that blamed tobacco as a cause of cancer. In spite of the warnings about the dangers to the health, some 55 million Americans are still smoking and thousands join their ranks every day. Public health officials report that 300,000 persons die each year from diseases linked.with smoking. Even though smokers are being held up to growing ostracisim and laws have been passed that restrict smoking in public places, cigar- ettes continue to be a business with retail sales of 82,000,000,000 dollars in the United States - which is equivalent to 2.5 per cent of the gross domestic product. The present Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop, has said that signs of progress can be perceived, it being observed that per capita consumption of cigarettes is continuing to drop and more and more women are abandoning the smoking habit. "Smoking is no longer socially acceptable and it is prohibited in more public places than ever," indicated Koop in a Journal of 0

• i 0 2. the American Medical Association (AMA) editorial published in last week's edition. The AMA has for several years blamed the smoking habit as the leading preventable cause of death. More and more American cities and States have passed laws that prohibit smoking in public places. Offices and factories have restricted designated areas for those who want to smoke; many building lobbies and spaces at airport terminals are reserved for nonsmokers. Cigarette advertising on television and radio has been banned for years. According to the Tobacco Institute, in 1987 there were 574,000 million cigarettes sold in the United States. That is the last year for which reliable figures are available and said quantity must be compared with the record 640,000 million registered in 1981. The Institute plans to release the results of a public opinion survey revealing that although a majority of people favor the reg- ulation of threats to the public health, such as the elimination of hazardous wastes, they do not want prohibitions of cigarettes in public places, strict regulations on cigarette advertising or higher taxes on the product. A spokesman indicated that the survey shows that Koop does not have public backing in his efforts to apply stricter controls-to the cigarette trade. ~ c3

0 • k t 3. Meanwhile, Koop has criticized'cigarette promotion in Third World countries by American and British tobacco companies which, he says, are trying to make up in those nations for the decline in demand in the developed world. He stated in the AMA journal editorial: "These companies are exporting disease, disability and death to the peoples of the de- veloping countries who have little or no knowledge of the dangers of smoking. How will they cope with the health care costs that will be incurred in the future? "We have the obligation to help the developing countries learn lessons from the mistakes that the developed countries have previously made," he added.