RITC
November
6, 2002
Ottawa,
Canada
We, researchers and funders of tobacco control research in developing countries, gathered together at our first joint meeting in Ottawa, Canada, November 4-6, 2002. We call on the development community to recognize the enormous threat to human life and health, and more broadly to sustainable development and poverty reduction posed by tobacco use. We urge that tobacco control be elevated to high priority on the development agenda.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has recognized tobacco as one of the world's biggest killers. It kills half its long-term users, through illnesses such as cancer and heart and lung diseases. Its burden has already shifted from rich to poor countries. The annual tobacco-related death toll in developing countries will climb over the next thirty years from about 2 million today to an estimated 7 million in 2030, seventy percent of the global burden.
Just as smoking has spread rapidly from rich to poor countries, it has spread rapidly from the rich to the poor within those countries. Over time, as studies in India and other developing countries show, it is the poorer and less educated who have the highest addiction rates and the lowest quit rates. The burden of tobacco addiction on the poor is multiple. It comes through spending for tobacco rather than food, from high rates of disease and from increased vulnerability as breadwinners suffer illness or premature death.
Research shows that contrary to the statements of the tobacco industry, tobacco use is not the informed choice of adult consumers but a serious addiction usually formed well under the age of 25. This addiction of the young is encouraged by tobacco advertising and promotion, which in developing countries is directly targeted at vulnerable populations, at children and youth and, increasingly, at women. Cigarette package warnings in Canada rightly state: "Studies have shown that tobacco can be harder to quit than heroin or cocaine."
There is already strong evidence of what needs to be done to sharply reduce tobacco consumption particularly steadily increasing taxes, banning advertising and promotion of sports and entertainment events, provision of cessation assistance and public information and education. Rigorous research and effective advocacy have contributed to sound tobacco control policies in several developing countries, and have started to dramatically reduce the number of smokers and how much tobacco they consume.
Research evidence of tobacco's impact must be effectively disseminated and localized to contribute to the development of effective tobacco control policies and programs at the country level. Local leadership and ownership is vital.
As internal tobacco industry documents demonstrate a deliberate strategy to bias research results, it is important that research be free from influence by the tobacco industry.
There is a need for concerted international action on tobacco control in a number of inter-related areas:
• Mobilize increased financial resources
to extend the knowledge base, including support for a wide-range of strategic
research activities.
• Strengthen research capacity in
developing countries, including partnerships and networks across countries.
• Incorporate a sustainable development
focus into tobacco control research agendas.
• Generate financial and political
support for proactive dissemination of knowledge to inform the debate on
public policy on tobacco control. Integrate tobacco control into the research
and programming agendas of development agencies.
• Deny funding for tobacco control
research to researchers that have received financial support from the tobacco
industry. Ensure transparency in accepting funding for tobacco control
research from industries where conflict may exist.
• Mobilize civil society and governments
against the tobacco epidemic at the country, regional, and global levels,
building on the variety of effective tobacco control mechanisms already
available.
• Support the adoption and implementation
of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) to help control the
tobacco epidemic globally.
Participants at the meeting included: