HomeUploadUpload DirectHotlinkRandomAbouttheme toggle

The World Health Organization's Tough Tactics Against Tobacco and E-Cigs

Views: 929
The World Health Organization achieves consensus on tobacco control and vaping through secrecy, mass detentions, and media censorship.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: http://youtube.com/reasontv
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reason.Magazine/
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason
Subscribe to our podcast at iTunes: https://goo.gl/az3a7a

Reason is the planet's leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines.
--------------

In India today, tobacco use is so widespread, a million deaths every year are attributed to its use. Tobacco can be stuffed inside of a wide variety of cigarettes and beedis, minced into a masala of spices known as gutka, or piled on top of paan – a leafy, addictive stimulant that multiplies a user's risk of oral cancer almost tenfold.

Those million deaths a year are one reason why the Seventh Session of the Conference of the Parties is being held in Delhi this year. Run by the World Health Organization (WHO), the conference is dedicated to curbing tobacco use through education, taxation, bans, and worldwide enforcement against smuggling operations. One-hundred-and-eighty signatory nations are bound to follow the bylaws passed behind these doors.

But who gets a say in what the WHO does is a hotly contest matter. Only thirty members of the public and selected members of the media are treated to limited, stage managed press conferences. Nations like China, with state-owned tobacco monopolies, are warmly welcomed, but anyone with the slightest connection to a private tobacco industry is shown the exit. Large pharmaceutical companies generously fund conference attendees, while their anti-tobacco products like Nicorette gum compete with products that the WHO views unfavorably, like electronic cigarettes.

The secretive nature of the conference didn't go over well with India's tobacco farmers. After a few minutes of protest outside the convention, 500 farmers were corralled by police and detained inside this local police station. After a brief negotiation and a bribe offered from an unnamed source outside of ReasonTV, leaders of the movement were temporarily released to speak with us outside the walls of the police station.

As the farmers were being released from jail that evening, convention delegates voted to expel the media from the remainder of the conference. Drew Johnson, a reporter and columnist for The Daily Caller, decided to stand up for transparency by staying seated in the press gallery. He was forcibly ejected.

If it's hard to understand why a $4 billion organization like the WHO feels threatened by the average Indian farmer who lives on $3 a day, it's worth recalling the source of all the hostility. By hook or by crook, the tobacco industry has pushed back against every public health measure in the last fifty years. The result is today's polarized debate, one that values the elimination of tobacco over jobs, transparency, and consumer choice.

Expanding its authority beyond tobacco control, e-cigarettes and vape products now find themselves potentially subject to a worldwide ban. Delegates to the convention have expressed support for "a complete ban on the sale, manufacture, import and export of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems". Small but determined activist communities like Asian Vape Association, are already fighting back, organizing their own counter-conferences in Delhi this year.

It can't be easy getting 180 signatory nations to agree on much of anything. This year, the Seventh Session of the Congress of the Parties resolved only two things of note: reaffirming their determination to regulate vaping products. And further limiting access to the convention by the public, due to potential tobacco industry interference. Two resolutions that seemed designed to elicit more public protest at the next conference, two years from now.

Produced, photographed, narrated, and edited by Todd Krainin.
@ReasonVidsfollow
Thumbnail for Will Trump Make Infrastructure Great Again? Q&A with Bob Poole11:48
Will Trump Make Infrastructure Great Again? Q&A with Bob Poole
ReasonVids
993 views
Thumbnail for Me and the boys on our way back to Twitter after Elon Musk bought off the site.0:02
Me and the boys on our way back to Twitter after Elon Musk bought off the site.
bestofvoatxyz
855 views
Thumbnail for Why Would I Give You These Things? | SomePkmn-LovingDude3:10
Why Would I Give You These Things? | SomePkmn-LovingDude
mattknezz
328 views
Thumbnail for How Portland's Protests Drifted into ‘Dangerous Territory’4:24
How Portland's Protests Drifted into ‘Dangerous Territory’
ReasonVids
943 views
Thumbnail for Weston McKennie against Man City! | UEFA0:07
Weston McKennie against Man City! | UEFA
invidious
95 views
Thumbnail for Former LA Mayor Richard Riordan on Schwarzenegger, Unions, and Bankrupt Cities9:39
Former LA Mayor Richard Riordan on Schwarzenegger, Unions, and Bankrupt Cities
ReasonVids
831 views
Thumbnail for Meet the Robot Lawyer Fighting Fines, Fees, and Red Tape8:16
Meet the Robot Lawyer Fighting Fines, Fees, and Red Tape
ReasonVids
847 views
Thumbnail for Now I want to move to the Shire!0:53
Now I want to move to the Shire!
bestofupgoat
456 views
Thumbnail for Cheers to 20 Years of IJ’s Clinic on Entrepreneurship Helping Small Business Owners4:21
Cheers to 20 Years of IJ’s Clinic on Entrepreneurship Helping Small Business Owners
IJvids
838 views
Thumbnail for Doom - E1M2: Nuclear Plant (Nightmare! 100% Secrets + Items) | decino4:57
Doom - E1M2: Nuclear Plant (Nightmare! 100% Secrets + Items) | decino
doom.topic
680 views
Thumbnail for Joel Klein on School Choice3:36
Joel Klein on School Choice
ReasonVids
790 views
Thumbnail for Dance Ban: Footloose in Arizona, by Drew Carey and Reason.tv6:29
Dance Ban: Footloose in Arizona, by Drew Carey and Reason.tv
ReasonVids
859 views
Thumbnail for The person in red was in the bathroom during the entire landing process after being asked many times to come out and take a seat by flight staff. After which this happened.5:57
The person in red was in the bathroom during the entire landing process after being asked many times to come out and take a seat by flight staff. After which this happened.
publicfreakouts
864 views
Thumbnail for Rep. Tom McClintock on the Contradictions of Green Policy9:06
Rep. Tom McClintock on the Contradictions of Green Policy
ReasonVids
894 views
Thumbnail for "Truckers have joined in the protests in France as well, dumping their loads on their way to Paris. Paris has an estimated 3 days of food supplies left at this stage..."0:38
"Truckers have joined in the protests in France as well, dumping their loads on their way to Paris. Paris has an estimated 3 days of food supplies left at this stage..."
AOUisgay
377 views
Thumbnail for Drew Drechsel at the National Finals Stage 1 | American Ninja Warrior2:05
Drew Drechsel at the National Finals Stage 1 | American Ninja Warrior
ninjawarrior
1041 views
Thumbnail for No more brother wars.0:54
No more brother wars.
voatcatbox
507 views
Thumbnail for No-Face Nate - My Addiction2:33
No-Face Nate - My Addiction
SmashTheJourgeoisie
794 views
Thumbnail for Stop Rewarding Single Parenthood With Our Money | Grunt Speak 4:14
Stop Rewarding Single Parenthood With Our Money | Grunt Speak
Terrence Popp
1301 views
Thumbnail for Trump's Failed Promise to Stop America's 'Endless Wars'12:01
Trump's Failed Promise to Stop America's 'Endless Wars'
ReasonVids
1008 views
Thumbnail for Democratic Disney vs. Republican Disney6:12
Democratic Disney vs. Republican Disney
ReasonVids
996 views

points

Permalink
Reply
libertarian, reason magazine, reason.com, reason.tv, reasontv, world health organization, vaping, fctc, e-cigarettes, a billion lives, aaron biebert, cop7
TOS  •  Add Keywords  •  Donate  •   Analytics  •   DMCA  •   Puzzle