Don’t Allow Merchants of Death to Kill Abroad

Having long cast their domineering shadow over American society, the giant tobacco companies have suddenly experienced a sharp reversal of fortune. The political, regulatory and legal climates have shifted against Big Tobacco. Public outrage at the industry’s deceptive and deadly practices is growing daily, thanks to the hard work of public health advocates and the disclosure--stemming from the judicial system’s all-important discovery process--of tobacco company plans to hook children and lie to the public about tobacco’s dangers.

The tobacco titans are seeking refuge at the bargaining table. In negotiations with state attorneys general, private trial lawyers and some public health advocates, the tobacco companies are seeking a “global settlement” to resolve all present and future damage claims against them in the U.S. Unfortunately, the parties on the other side of the table appear ready to accommodate the companies, a case of snatching failure from the jaws of victory.

Nothing condemns these negotiations more completely than the exclusion of the tobacco companies’ overseas victims and operations. It is immoral to discuss a “global settlement” that covers only Americans--especially when tobacco takes a much bigger toll overseas than domestically. The World Health Organization predicts that the tobacco-related death toll will rise from the current 3 million a year (including 400,000 Americans) to 10 million a year by the 2020s; 70% of those fatalities are expected to occur in developing countries.

The starting point of any discussion with the tobacco companies must be their agreement to offer all concessions on a “most favored nation” basis around the world.

An MFN provision would mean that U.S. tobacco companies agree:

* To have no discrimination between American and non-American victims; non-American victims would be entitled to the same levels of compensation and comparable legal remedies.

* To offer to compensate foreign government health agencies, proportional to their market share and reflecting the formula used to determine their payment to the states for Medicaid reimbursement.

* To give citizens in other countries at least equivalent protections and guarantees in terms of marketing limitations, labeling requirements, nicotine and ingredient regulation, secondhand smoke, performance requirements for reduction of new children smokers and other provisions.

In the absence of an MFN clause, the potential American public health gains from any agreement would be overwhelmed by the ongoing efforts by the tobacco companies to hook hundreds of millions of youngsters in Asia, South America, Africa, Russia and Eastern Europe.

While U.S. tobacco consumption dropped 17% in the past decade, exports rose 259%. Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds sell more than two-thirds of their cigarettes overseas, and nearly half of their 1996 profits came from foreign sales--almost triple the proportion of a decade earlier.

A settlement constraining industry operations only in the United States means that Big Tobacco will be free to intensify its deadly marketing in foreign lands.

The industry’s marketing efforts involve slick promotional tactics that prey on populations not hardened to American-style marketing prowess. The tobacco multinationals hook teenagers around the world with free cigarette samples, television advertisements, sponsorships of sports events, rock concerts and radio shows, the use of celebrities, the nurturing of politicians and the association of tobacco with perceived American values and traits of freedom, “hipness,” affluence and sophistication. Often, the tobacco marketing strategies skirt foreign nations’ laws. In China, for example, the companies circumvent cigarette advertisement bans by advertising brands without explicitly showing or mentioning cigarettes.

When the American companies invade a market, smoking rates rise. For example, according to the U.S. General Accounting Office, after the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative forced the removal of Korean tobacco import restrictions in 1988 and American companies were able to enter the market, smoking rates among male Korean teenagers rose from 18.4% to 29.8% in a single year. The rate among female teenagers more than quintupled, from 1.6% to 8.7%.

Excluding international tobacco control from the settlement negotiations reflects a critical strategic error by those public health advocates participating in the negotiations. Rather than trading exemptions, benefits, shields and limits on liability for industry concessions, those at the negotiating table should be focused on making demands of Big Tobacco. Globalizing the demands increases the momentum against this industry and deprives it of an effective escape from the terms of a geographically limited agreement.

The United States doesn’t permit horse-trading with hard drug dealers, nor should it be allowed with tobacco drug dealers. No benefits should be provided to the tobacco merchants of cancer, heart disease and other plagues. The only acceptable topic for discussion is how much the industry is going to concede--and those concessions must be global.