Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T06:32:03.215Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Tobacco: a product like any other?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2011

Kirill Danishevskiy  and
Martin McKee
Kirill Danishevskiy
Affiliation:
Co-chair, ATACA (Anti Tobacco Advocacy Coalition), Moscow, Russia
Martin McKee*
Affiliation:
Professor of European Public Health, European Centre on Health of Societies in Transition, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK
*
*Correspondence to: Prof. Martin McKee, Professor of European Public Health, European Centre on Health of Societies in Transition, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 15–17 Tavistock Place, London WC1H 9SH, UK. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Legislation in most countries regulates trade in poisons and highly addictive products, such as narcotics. The statements that (1) tobacco harms health and (2) causes addiction are established as facts in international and national law. Yet in Russia, and in many other countries, there is a contradiction between the open sale of this addictive poison and basic laws, such as those on product safety. Provisions in both the Russian constitution and the criminal code can be interpreted as making the sale of tobacco illegal, setting out severe penalties for those involved. Yet, remarkably, tobacco is treated quite differently from other products. In this paper, we describe the experience so far in seeking to enforce this legislation in Russia. Attempts to persuade the police to enforce the legislation have been unsuccessful, although they accept that there is a prima facie case for action but, in private, express fear of taking it. The case for action is currently being argued before the Russian Supreme Court but this could take many years to reach a conclusion. In the mean time, new legislation on the regulation of tobacco production has been passed by the State Duma, with the support of the tobacco industry, which implicitly assumes that tobacco is a lawful product, thereby creating legal confusion. We argue that the only way to redress this situation is to recognize that tobacco production and sales must be regulated in the same way as any other harmful and addictive substance.

Type
Debate
Information
Health Economics, Policy and Law , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , 16 March 2011 , pp. 265 - 272
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anon (2003), ‘Seen in the hallway’, Framework Convention Alliance Bulletin, 44: 6.Google Scholar
Assunta, M.Chapman, S. (2004), ‘ “The world's most hostile environment”: how the tobacco industry circumvented Singapore's advertising ban’, Tobacco Control, 13, Supplement 2: ii51–ii57.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Danishevski, K., Gilmore, A.McKee, M. (2008), ‘Public attitudes towards smoking and tobacco control policy in Russia’, Tobacco Control, 17: 276–283.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Danishevskiy, K. D.Saverskiy, A. V. (2009), ‘Russia: Pandora's box, or holy fools’ flash mob?’, Tobacco Control, 18: 78–81.Google ScholarPubMed
Ferguson, S. G., Shiffman, S., Gitchell, J. G., Sembower, M. A.West, R. (2009), ‘Unplanned quit attempts-results from a U.S. sample of smokers and ex-smokers’, Nicotine and Tobacco Research, 11: 827–832.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freeman, B.Chapman, S. (2009), ‘Open source marketing: Camel cigarette brand marketing in the “Web 2.0” world’, Tobacco Control, 18(3): 212–217.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gilmore, A., Fooks, G.McKee, M. (2009), ‘The international monetary fund and tobacco: a product like any other?’, International Journal of Health Services, 39(4): 789–793.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gowing, L., Farrell, M., Bornemann, R., Sullivan, L.Ali, R. (2008), ‘Substitution treatment of injecting opioid users for prevention of HIV infection’, The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, CD004145.Google ScholarPubMed
Jha, P., Chaloupka, F. J., Corrao, M.Jacob, B. (2006), ‘Reducing the burden of smoking world-wide: effectiveness of interventions and their coverage’, Drug and Alcohol Review, 25: 597–609.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Laugesen, M., Glover, M., Fraser, T., McCormick, R.Scott, J. (2010), ‘Four policies to end the sale of cigarettes and smoking tobacco in New Zealand by 2020’, The New Zealand Medical Journal, 123(1314): 55–67.Google ScholarPubMed
LeGresley, E. M., Muggli, M. E.Hurt, R. D. (2006), ‘Movie moguls: British American Tobacco's covert strategy to promote cigarettes in Eastern Europe’, European Journal of Public Health, 16: 505–508.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McLachlan, G. (2009), ‘Taking the spice out of legal smoking mixtures’, Lancet, 374: 600.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Scollo, M. M.Winstanley, M. H. (eds) (2008), Tobacco in Australia: Facts and Issues, Third Edition, Melbourne: Cancer Council Victoria.Google Scholar
Shahab, L.West, R. (2010), ‘Public support in England for a total ban on the sale of tobacco products’, Tobacco Control, 19(2): 143–147.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sieminska, A., Buczkowski, K., Jassem, E., Lewandowska, K., Ucinska, R.Chelminska, M. (2008), ‘Patterns of motivations and ways of quitting smoking among Polish smokers: a questionnaire study’, BMC Public Health, 8: 274.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
State Duma of the Russian Federation. (2002), Federal Law on Technical Regulation, no. 184 of 27th December, Moscow.Google Scholar
Thomson, G., Wilson, N.Edwards, R. (2010), ‘Kiwi support for the end of tobacco sales: New Zealand governments lag behind public support for advanced tobacco control policies’, The New Zealand Medical Journal, 123: 106–111.Google ScholarPubMed
US Surgeon General (1988), The Health Consequences of Smoking: Nicotine Addiction, Washington DC: DHHS.Google Scholar
Wagner, M. (2010), Rabbis: Efrat will be smoke-free. Jerusalem Post. http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=166802Google Scholar
World Health Organization (2008), Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, Geneva: WHO.Google Scholar
Caввиди, и. (2010), 2010. http://www.savvidi.ru/ [14 July 2010].Google Scholar