| The Tobacco Reference Guide |
| by David Moyer, MD. |
| Chapter 27 International |
| tobacco reference guideg (artefact pour |
| International: Thailand |
| globalink (artefact pour saut de ligne) |
| In Thailand, cigarette advertising and promotion is banned, as is smoking in most |
| public places. Adult yearly per capita cigarette consumption is 1050, low by Asian |
| standards. Largely because of the ad ban, American companies were denied the |
| tools that they traditionally use to attract new customers, and imported cigarettes in |
| 1995 had only 3% of the market share, compared to 21% in Japan, 22% in Taiwan, |
| and 6% in South Korea. |
| The Washington Post National Weekly Edition, December 2-8, 1996, p. 12 |
| tobacco reference guideg (artefact pour saut |
| Tobacco companies are waging a major battle against the Thailand Ministry of Public |
| Health over proposed regulations requiring companies to reveal the identity and |
| amount of additives in each brand of cigarette and cigar. Some in the Ministry plan to |
| make the information public - a first for any nation that would make previously secret |
| information available worldwide. Protesting vehemently, manufacturers have been |
| persuading US, British, and Japanese Embassy officials in Bangkok to write to the |
| Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggesting that the regulations may conflict with |
| international trade agreements that protect trade secrets. One US Embassy letter |
| attached to a 12-page document from Philip Morris (Thailand) Ltd encapsulated other |
| industry complaints, including that technical standards in the regulations are "vague |
| and ambiguous . . . contain factual errors . . . and unfairly discriminate against |
| international manufacturers of cigarettes". If the US Trade Representative Office |
| decides that tobacco ingredients are trade secrets rather than health hazards, the |
| USA could threaten to impose trade sanctions on Thailand. |
| Quote from the British Medical Journal, January 13, 1996, p. 112 |
| tobacco reference guideg (artefact pour saut |
| The smoking rate for monks in Thailand (97% of the population is Buddhist) dropped |
| from 53% in 1990 to 32% in 1996. |
| Abstract PO 92, 10th World Conference on Tobacco or Health, Beijing, 1997 |
| tobacco reference guideg (artefact pour |
| Page 96 of 116 |
| globalink (artefact pour saut de ligne) |
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