Between concluding rounds of negotiations towards the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a major U.S.-proposed free trade agreement, a divisive fight has heated up over the extent to which countries should be allowed to regulate the sale of foreign – potentially far cheaper – tobacco products.
Despite the great strides made in Latin America with tobacco control legislation, the industry deploys a range of strategies to circumvent the restrictions imposed on cigarette advertising, social organisations and experts complain.
Mujeeb Rahuman (39), a mason in the Venjaramoodu village in Thiruvananthapuram, the southernmost district in India’s coastal Kerala state, has been a chain smoker for the past twenty years.
Tobacco use led to almost six million deaths in 2011, according to new research released here on Monday, of which nearly 80 percent were in low- and middle-income countries.
Brazil spends some 10 billion dollars a year on health care for smokers – more than three times the tax revenue from the tobacco industry in this country, which is the world's top exporter and second producer of tobacco.