Comments on: Tobacco Control Rhetoric Poll Winner Announced

By: Pascal Diethelm

Pascal Diethelm — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 06:13:24 +0000

I can testify that Mr. Watson's idea is a good one, as I had the opportunity of testing it in a presentation I made in Niamey (Niger) last year. My subject was “the duplicity of the tobacco industry with respect to development issues”. One of my slides that was particularly appreciated by the audience expanded on the theme suggested by Mr. Watson. It said: “From a macro-economic view point, the purchase of cigarettes by smokers reorient a significant part of the consumers' purchasing power to a product that creates no wealth at all, generates very few jobs, and has a very low multiplying effect on the economy. Furthermore, it generates poverty, as the sale of this product, which is in most cases imported, only profits the tobacco multinationals, which use it to *siphon* money out of countries which do not not have much of it in the first place.

This slide was illustrated with a picture of a man siphoning petrol out of a car. See slide at:

http://www.oxyromandie.ch/imag….

For “investors” in highly developed countries, selling cigarettes is a good way of siphoning money out of developing countries, as this is the product of mass consumption which has the greatest profit margin of all, and by far.

By: smoking facts

smoking facts — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 06:30:20 +0000

Why has there been a shift away from the publicly sponsored television ads that I used to watch when I was a kid? Is it because smoking is primarily a lower socio-economic problem in the US? There needs to be more public discourse on television about the dangers of smoking. This would create critical conversation opportunities in the house between adults and kids which is so sorely lacking in today's generation.

By: chaswin

chaswin — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 21:53:11 +0000

Because everybody knows that pharmaceutical companies make quit smoking products, Tobacco Control should stop taking their money in order not to have conflicting interests.