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Eleventh World Conference on Tobacco or Health Gets Set to Kick Off in Chicago

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BRIAN NELSON, CNN ANCHOR: An effort to stop the spread of smoking in developing nations has come to Chicago. The 11th World Conference on Tobacco or Health expects to draw experts from 100 nations.

A little earlier, we spoke to Dr. Judith MacKay, who says that many Asian countries lack the resources to control tobacco use.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NELSON: Ms. MacKay, what's the purpose of this conference?

DR. JUDITH MACKAY, ASIAN CONSULTANCY ON TOBACCO CONTROL: I think the purpose of this conference is to really highlight the problems of tobacco, not just within the United States but globally, because tobacco, of course, kills one in two of every people who smoke. It's an epidemic that is expanding.

We've got 1.1 billion smokers in the world today, and by 2030 that will be 1.64 billion. The number of deaths is going up from 4 million a year to 10 million by that same time period of 30 years. So we're dealing with a global disaster, and I think that the conference is important because many people in the U.S. think it's a problem that is being solved and that's simply not true. It's expanding and it's being exported.

NELSON: I was going to ask you that. It seems that in the eyes of many here, that the U.S., other Western nations are turning away from tobacco products, at least the consumers are. Is the lucrative prize now Asia?

MACKAY: The lucrative prize is china, because one in every three cigarettes smoked in the world today is smoked in China. And frankly, it wouldn't matter if every smoker in North America quit tomorrow if the trans-national tobacco companies could persuade Chinese men to smoke trans-national cigarettes, and if they could persuade Chinese women to smoke -- very few of them do at the moment, only about 3 percent.

So I think China is the prize, and the tobacco companies have said it themselves, it's like dreaming of outer space, it's like their entire future. And with a small population country like the U.S., with only 5 percent of the world's population, this pales into in significance against countries like China.

NELSON: Does the anti-smoking drive hope to have any progress made within China?

MACKAY: I think so. The Chinese have already done quite a lot. I mean, for example, they have banned all advertising on the print media, in the electronic media. They have got a lot of smoke-free areas in public places, they have health warnings on their cigarettes. They -- the last World Conference on Tobacco or Health held three years ago was held in China. So they are certainly taking action, but they have an epidemic of such magnitude that it will take many, many years of sustained and concerted effort to try and bring the numbers down.

But I think -- as far as the conference goes, I think there is a real opportunity to learn -- for Americans to learn about the tobacco epidemic. America certainly leads the world in terms of smoke-free areas and in terms of litigation, but it is very far behind in a lot of other anti-tobacco measures. I mean, for example, health warnings -- in Thailand, they have health warnings that say smoking causes impotence. I mean, they tell it straight.

In terms of advertising bans, even Mongolia, Singapore, many countries have long since banned all advertising and promotion. So America is somewhat behind there. Singapore has licensed retailers to sell cigarettes. They have banned duty-free cigarettes. There are many countries with very much tougher measures than America's. So I think this conference would be quite a two-way process of each learning from the other, as the Chinese would say.

NELSON: All right, thanks for talking to us. Judith MacKay, director of Asian Consultancy on Tobacco Control. Thanks.

MACKAY: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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