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BAT's "Anti-Smoking"
Youth Program
(TITLE): IS B.A.T. CUTTING ITS OWN THROAT? Dear Sir, On the late EM-TV news on 9 October 2001, it was revealed that British American Tobacco is launching an anti-smoking education program in Port Moresby to persuade children and young people (under 18) not to smoke. Do crocodiles tell people not to swim in rivers? Do raskols (thieves) advise people how to avoid being robbed? Do tobacco companies seriously try to prevent people using their products? This is the latest in a series of scams being tried in many parts of
the world by the multi-national tobacco companies in an effort to:
The tobacco multinationals know very well which moves would damage their poisonous business, and they portray themselves as happy to introduce, nay, to sponsor, moves which profess to combat their own business. But they have never sponsored any program that would seriously harm their financial interests. In several countries in the world, including Romania, and now Papua New Guinea, they are trying to do deals with government health offices to fund tobacco education programs for young people. The key theme, in whichever way they try to introduce it, is to put across the message the smoking is an "adult issue" and not for kids. Anyone with any experience at all with young people knows that to portray a product as "for adults" to youth, especially if it says, "not for youth", is to make that product desirable to youth to prove their "adult" status. To say, as Vai Reva (BAT Corporate Affairs Manager) was quoted as saying, that young people can still have fun without smoking is a subtle way of saying the same thing. To "still have fun" implies that the main fun IS smoking - and that when they are old enough, they can have adult fun by smoking. BAT knows very well that over 80% of all adult smokers start when they are under 18. Relatively few smokers start as adults. And with older smokers dying off, or quitting, they want a replacement market. To really try to discourage youth from starting to smoke is to corporately cut their own throats. BAT knows that, too. If this program were serious, they would be cheating their own shareholders. Of course, it isn't. If BAT were really interested in preventing youth smoking, they would cease their sponsorship of youth-oriented events, such as Gold & Tones on EM-TV, Mutrus Kalcha (Culture) on radio, the Hiri Moale Festival, the Cambridge Cup, the Kools Basketball challenge, and their sponsorship of a number of other sports teams and events. They would cease their opposition to a strong FCTC. They would voluntarily put onto every tobacco product graphic images of the harm their product causes, as is now required in Canada (and which they are fighting vigorously to avoid in other countries). They would voluntarily detail all the toxins in every cigarette. They would dedicate a large percentage of their profits to national health systems to cover the burden of increased health costs created by their product, and ultimately funded by the tax-payer. They would openly state that their product contains a long list of poisons (such as cyanide and carbon monoxide, as well as nicotine), and cancer-producing chemicals (such as tar - euphemistically known on their PNG packaging as "CPM"). When this happens, perhaps we can take their propaganda about prevention of youth smoking more seriously. Let us recognise this "education program" for what it is, a thinly disguised scam to try and portray themselves as concerned about youth (their own future customers, and the future of their profits!!) Given all the above, can anyone really take this program seriously? Colin T. Richardson |