British American Tobacco’s submission to the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control

This is the submission of the British American Tobacco group of companies commenting on the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. We are the world’s most international tobacco group with an active presence in 180 countries. Our companies sell some of the world’s best known brands including Dunhill, Kent, State Express 555, Lucky Strike, Benson & Hedges, Rothmans and Pall Mall.

Executive summary

• The WHO’s proposed ‘Framework Convention on Tobacco Control’ is fundamentally flawed and will not achieve its objectives. • The tobacco industry, along with other industries involved in the manufacture and distribution of legal but risky products, is the subject of considerable public attention. It is important that the debate about tobacco remains open, objective, constructive and free from opportunistic criticism if we are effectively to address the real issues associated with tobacco. • British American Tobacco is responsible tobacco. We seek to operate in partnership with governments, who are significant stakeholders in our business, and other interested parties, based on our open acknowledgement that we make a risky product and therefore support sensible regulation. • British American Tobacco shares the World Health Organisation’s desire to reduce the health impact of tobacco use. This paper outlines British American Tobacco’s proposal for the sensible regulation of tobacco. • Our proposal will relieve the WHO of the cost and bureaucracy involved in its wish to become a single global tobacco regulator, leaving it free to do what it should be doing – policy orientation.

Some facts about tobacco

• Today over one billion adults, about one third of the world’s adult population, choose to smoke. • There are serious health risks associated with smoking, which we acknowledge. • Governments around the world derive approximately 10 times more revenue from tobacco than shareholders in tobacco companies. • Some 100 million people are employed, directly or indirectly, in the tobacco industry. • Tobacco is a legal product and has always been regulated by governments.

A new environment

• The tobacco debate has become increasingly polarised and emotionally charged leading to a clouding of the issues. This has hindered progress towards addressing the reality of the health issues associated with smoking. • This lack of progress is not serving the needs of many key stakeholders, not least smokers, governments and the 100 million people employed in the tobacco industry. • British American Tobacco wants these issues resolved as quickly as possible.

Today’s challenge

• How can a quantum leap towards reducing the health impact of tobacco be achieved in the shortest possible time?

The key to rapid progress

• The key to rapid progress is to create a climate of genuine co-operation which will allow the tobacco companies to apply their considerable knowledge, expertise and resources to assist governments in achieving these fundamental health and related objectives:

- Preventing youth from smoking - Ensuring the public is appropriately informed of the risks associated with smoking - Identifying lower risk tobacco products and encouraging those people who chose to continue to smoke to use such products - Ensuring that the marketing of tobacco products is consistent with all of the above - Ensuring the approaches to public smoking accommodate the desires of both smokers and non smokers - Ensuring orderly tobacco markets - Ensuring that appropriate controls are in place to promote these objectives in every country. 2 Creating a climate of co-operation In order to create the climate of co-operation that is needed to bring about the quickest possible reduction in the health impact of smoking, British American Tobacco proposes the following:

• An agreed set of clearly articulated, unambiguous principles that support the health objectives outlined above • The tobacco companies and the World Health Organisation commit to ongoing consultation and dialogue with governments and other interested parties to develop national solutions to achieving these health objectives. As a sign of good faith, British American Tobacco is prepared to sign an agreement with the WHO to this effect • A series of initiatives, involving the tobacco companies, relevant international agencies and interested third parties, to identify workable solutions to issues with a genuinely cross-border dimension • Transparent and open public reporting of progress against these objectives.

The way forward

Operating within such a climate of co-operation, British American Tobacco envisages national solutions that address the fundamental health and related issues associated with smoking in the following ways:

Youth smoking prevention

• Identifying, through support for independent research into teenage behaviour, the incidence and key factors contributing to the use of adult products, including tobacco, by youth in a particular country. • Working with national governments and other interested parties to develop and implement the most effective youth smoking prevention programmes, given the prevailing economic, social and cultural conditions in a particular country. These might include:

- Retail access control programmes - Education programmes to discourage young people from smoking.

• Measuring and reporting on the success of these programmes • Lobbying for minimum age of 18 for the sale of cigarettes where a lower age limit, or no age limit at all, currently exists • Identifying and communicating best practice, internationally.

Consumer information

• Working with the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) to investigate the most appropriate way of measuring tar and nicotine yields of individual brands. • Working with national governments and other interested parties to:

- Measure, through support for independent research where appropriate, public awareness of tobacco-related risks, including the possible implications of smoking less, smoking lower tar products and quitting - Ensure the appropriate display of health warnings on packaging and advertising - Ensure the appropriate display of tar and nicotine yields on cigarette packs and advertising where supported by national governments - Determine what messages best enhance public understanding of tobacco-related risks, given the extent of awareness in a particular country at a given time - Support, in the most appropriate way, effective communication of these messages - Disclose to national governments a list of all ingredients.

• Ensuring, through whatever means are appropriate, that consumers have access to quitting advice.

Lower risk products

• Working with governments and other interested parties to establish the most appropriate direction for lower risk product research and development.

• Promoting the establishment of clear criteria for evaluating the relative health risks associated with different tobacco products, by offering appropriate scientific and health institutions:

- Whatever product expertise we have that is useful to them. - Funding for research into the relative health risks associated with different tobacco products. 3 • Meanwhile, continuing to focus research and development activities in the three most promising areas:

- The development of low tar products - The reduction of specific constituents - The development of innovative products.

• Working with national governments to ensure that smokers are aware of the existence and availability of any product that is identified as lower risk.

Marketing standards

• Working with national governments and interested parties to establish appropriate standards for the marketing of tobacco products. These should ensure that:

- Tobacco marketing is directed at adults, in terms of both media and content - Consumers have the information they need to make informed choices about the brands they smoke - All tobacco companies are publicly accountable for compliance with these standards.

• Supporting independent research to ensure that tobacco marketing does not encourage youth to smoke. • Meanwhile we will continue to apply self-imposed standards of marketing practice in recognition that risky products should be subject to restrictions.

Public smoking accommodation

• Working with national governments and interested parties to ensure that:

- Cost effective devices for reducing environmental tobacco smoke in public places are investigated and funded - Support is provided for credible solutions in the hospitality industry - Support is provided to help educate parents not to smoke around young children.

Corporate conduct and orderly markets

• Demonstrating publicly how we meet societal expectations of multinational companies in an increasingly globalised economy. • Working with national and supranational organisations to eliminate counterfeit tobacco products. • Working with national and supranational organisations to eliminate the smuggling of tobacco products.

A sensible regulatory framework

• Working with national governments to ensure that, in each of the areas above, the most appropriate regulatory framework is in place. • Ensuring that voluntary agreements cover areas outside the reach of legislation.

What is sensible regulation?

• Effective regulation requires a careful balancing of the interests of all stakeholders. This is implicit in the OECD guidelines on sound regulation:

- “Regulatory principles necessarily differ from country to country, since issues of concern will arise from specific economic, social, and political environments and values.” 1

- “Regulations should be developed in an open and transparent fashion, with appropriate procedures for effective and timely input from interested parties such as affected businesses and trade unions, wider interest groups such as consumer and environmental organisations, or other levels of government. To gain the benefits of public consultation, Administrations should make available to the public as much information as is feasible, including proposed texts, explanations of the need for government action, and assessments of the benefits and costs.” 1

• The number of cultural, sectoral and geographic interests with a stake in the future of tobacco is very diverse. Consequently an agreed set of (non- regulatory) principles, freed from the constraints of the binding format proposed by the WHO, represents the only workable basis for the worldwide development of policies which:

1 Council of the OECD, Using the checklist to improve regulatory quality, http:www/oecd.org/puma/regref/rco95/backgr.htm, 1995 4 - Are squarely focused on reducing the health impact of smoking - Reflect the full range of social, economic, cultural and political priorities that exist in different countries around the world.

• British American Tobacco’s framework would:

- Ensure the mobilisation of maximum resources behind a common objective - Leave national governments free to develop the most appropriate policies for the specific circumstances of their country - Put in place the necessary checks and balances to ensure tobacco companies are accountable for their actions.

The WHO’s FCTC is fundamentally flawed

• The WHO’s proposal for a prescriptive ‘one size fits all’ convention and protocols overlook the full range of social, economic, cultural and political priorities that exist in different countries around the world.

• The WHO has stated "The tobacco industry, its trade associations and key allies should be kept from the negotiating process.”2 To exclude the tobacco manufacturers, growers, workers, consumers and retailers from a consultation process that should be fair and open, does not make for good policy formation.

• The WHO’s FCTC is based on a flawed interpretation of the statistics e.g. The WHO predicts more than a doubling of smoking-related deaths in 2030 to 10 million, based on current smoking prevalence, whereas its own World Health Reports for 1999 and 2000 report an overall trend to a decrease in the global incidence of lung cancer from 2.3% of all deaths to 2.1% of all deaths.

• Other examples of the flaws in the FCTC include:

- The WHO’s proposals, notably those relating to excise and international trade, will provide significant competitive advantage to rogue manufacturers and counterfeiters who are accountable to no-one.

- The WHO’s proposals to ban tobacco advertising and descriptors such as ‘Lights’, could infringe commercial and intellectual property rights guaranteed in international law and could clash with provisions embodied in national constitutions protecting freedom of speech.

- The WHO’s proposals would severely damage the tobacco companies’ abilities to continue to invest in new product development and youth smoking prevention. It is the tobacco companies who have the best chance of achieving real progress in these areas.

- The WHO has justified the need for an international treaty - similar in nature to an environmental convention - on the assumption that tobacco use is a "communicable disease"3 that passes across national boundaries like pollution or malaria. Smoking a cigarette is not the same as air-borne pollution from industrial operations which, for instance, affect neighbouring countries through acid rain. It follows, therefore, that this is not a sound principle on which to advocate an international convention on tobacco regulation. Yet the WHO is seeking to use the FCTC to achieve this aim.

- The WHO also assumes that the use of tobacco is being introduced into developing economies by tobacco companies and that the governments of these countries are incapable of setting their own policies and laws on tobacco. This again is a false assumption. It overlooks the fact that tobacco has been known and used in all countries for centuries, and national governments are perfectly capable of, and best suited to, setting their own policies and rules.

Summary

British American Tobacco is committed to working with national governments and relevant supranational organisations, including the WHO, to reduce the health impact of smoking. We have a great deal to offer both in our technical expertise and the fact that we have been involved in all aspects of the business, from seed to smoke, for 100 years around the world. We do not believe that a prescriptive international convention is the way forward. We welcome the opportunity for participation, in good faith, to achieve real progress.

2 Technical Paper 3: Mobilising the NGOs and the Media behind the FCTC. 3 Dr. Derek Yach – WHO, CNN interview May 31 2000