WHY TOBACCO COMPANIES ARE NEEDED
The civil society groups that have
been energetically campaigning against tobacco use, bringing the issues around
the industry into the public arena, giving other observers the opportunity to
analyse and comment on the issue from different angles.
It is no surprise that the NGOs are
able to devote a lot of energy into publicising the issue, considering that
they receive backing and funding from powerful international organisations
committed to tobacco control. In 2011 Michael
Bloomberg committed an additional $220 million to the fight against tobacco
around the world, bringing his total commitment to $600 million over several
years. Michael Bloomberg is the founder of the Bloomberg Foundation which,
along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is one of the prominent benefactors
of the anti-tobacco campaign in Africa. Both powerhouse foundations joined forces when
in 2008 they announced a combined investment of $500 million to increase
funding for tobacco control.
That sort of money committed to a
single cause brings to mind a similar campaign that has been ongoing for over
half a century. This campaign, often described as a war, has not only turned
out to be an expensive, futile and ineffective series of battles, it has become
a war that even those fighting now concede should be fought in another way –
the war on drugs.
It has been fought around the world
for decades and cost billions of dollars and has been a big headache for
governments because there is no structured, legally incorporated organisations
that can be regulated and controlled - it is a war against thousands of
nameless, faceless individuals and organisations and a pointless situation
where, for every crackdown on a major supplier, hundreds more pop up.
This is why many organisations and
even politicians in Europe and the US are now making controversial calls for a
change in drug policy and a move to legalise drugs. Why? Because they have
recognised that if the industry is legalised, it will be easier to control. It
sounds scandalous but if deeper thought is applied, it can be seen to be an
argument that makes sense.
A commentator, writing in the UK
Guardian newspaper reported that two European countries, Portugal and Czech
Republic, have decriminalised drugs, taking moves to ensure that supply is
controlled, products regulated and profits taxed.
An organisation called Count the
Costs is campaigning for an alternative to the current approach, arguing that
although the ‘war on drugs’ has been fought for 50 years, it has not prevented
the increase in drug supply and use. Count the Costs also argues that ‘the UN
Office on Drugs and Crime has identified the many serious unintended negative
consequences of the drug war.’ These consequences listed include a threat to
public health, the enrichment of criminals and the waste of billions on
ineffective law enforcement.
The Economist magazine recently ran a
commentary on Uruguay’s controversial decision to legalise cannabis
(marijuana), as part of the South American country’s attempt to try an
alternative approach to the drug problem.
Other Latin American countries are also tending towards the consideration
of such alternative approaches to the drug challenge. The magazine also
reported that although this approach has met with opposition, supporters of have
argued that “drug prohibition has caused more problems, in the form of
organised crime and clandestine consumption.” Needless to say, the supporters’
views held out.
But even before Uruguay, the US
states of Washington and Colorado were the first, in 2012, to legalise
marijuana use. This decision to adopt such a bold approach was described by The
Economist magazine as “a sensible drug policy decision from the federal
government, for once”
Although there is a clear difference
between illegal hard drugs and legal tobacco production, a parallel can be
drawn in the way that a war that is declared on a so-called public enemy, could
end up creating undesirable outcomes and a situation that spirals out of control.
There is currently a lot of money flowing
in and around tobacco control in Nigeria, so it is understandable that the
civil society campaigners and NGOs who receive grants from the international
multimillion dollar foundations would dive enthusiastically into the task of demonising
tobacco. However, they should not, in their excitement, overlook some of the
unanswered questions that surround this subject. The questions are: will the
government be able to control the nameless, faceless individuals and
organisations that will step in to supply the demand for tobacco, after the
legitimate companies have been legislated out of existence in the country? Who
will be the target of anti-tobacco campaigns if all the legal producers are run
out of business? Will smugglers be held accountable for quality standards? Will
counterfeiters care about the government’s opinions on their activities? Are we
blind to the fact that criminals around the world are waiting for legal,
regulated tobacco producers to be run out of business so that they can step in
to take over?
Tobacco control is what the
campaigners and international foundations are after by pressuring governments
to be rid of tobacco companies. Control is defined as “the power to influence the course of events “but looking at the
example of the war on drugs it becomes apparent that real control is
practically impossible where there is no entity that can be regulated. How will
the government influence the course of events around tobacco supply if they are
dealing with hundreds if not thousands of cottage industry tobacco producers
with no hygiene or quality standards or controls?
It is unlikely that smoking will
cease to be a human activity (even in our grandchildren’s lifetimes), so it is
not unreasonable to imagine that even if tobacco control campaigners around the
world achieve their goals, people will still smoke whatever is available to
them. If we don’t stop to consider these
questions seriously we risk waking up one day, decades from now, to look back
and wish we had protected the legal tobacco industries if nothing else just so
we could control them. We do need the tobacco control campaigners, but we need
tobacco control campaigners that think.
By Alaba Cole
Abuja.
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