Tobacco use kills about three million people all over the world each year, as the powerful tobacco industry continues to aggressively promote its legal and addictive product to new markets-- especially to children and young people. Transnational tobacco corporations interfere in public policymaking and undermine public health efforts. We must hold these corporations accountable for their abuses!
The tobacco industry loses close to 5,000 customers every day in the US alone-- including 3,500 who manage to quit, and about 1,200 who die. The most promising "replacement smokers" are young people: 90% of all smokers begin before they're 21, and 60% before they're 14! To find their new customers, every day US tobacco companies spend $11 million to advertise and promote cigarettes-- more than the US federal Office on Smoking and Health spends to prevent smoking in an entire year. Some promotional tactics proven effective in reaching young people around the world include the use of cartoon images, free cigarette giveaways, sponsorship of events that especially appeal to young people, and the use of cigarette logos on youth-oriented products.
After declining every year for 25 years, US smoking rates increased slightly in 1991-- reflecting the tobacco industry's success at hooking young smokers. More than 3,000 US teens become regular smokers each day, with girls smoking at a higher rate than boys. Since RJR's Joe Camel campaign began, smoking among US teens is up 10%.
Transnational tobacco companies such as Philip Morris, RJR Nabisco, B.A.T industries, and American Brands are also making their presence felt in other countries. In Kenya, for example, the smoking rate among primary school children was estimated at 40% in 1989, a huge jump from the 10% level estimated a decade earlier.
"The high and increasing profitability of the [tobacco] industry in the United States is of concern because the richer the industry becomes, the more powerful it becomes and the more difficult it is to control. The public health community faces the political, legislative, and economic strength of the tobacco industry, built up over time by the phenomenal cash flow and profitability of the cigarette business."
-- Smoking and Heath in the Americas, 1992 Report of US Surgeon General Antonia Novello
INFACT's purpose is to stop life-threatening abuses of transnational corporations and increase their accountability to people around the world. INFACT-- the organization that pushed General Electric out of the nuclear weapons business with the GE Boycott, and convinced Nestle to change its life-threatening marketing of infant formula in the third world with the Nestle Boycott-- is now taking on the deadly tobacco industry.