Here in India at the 14th World Conference on Tobacco or Health, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control is center stage.  The WHO FCTC is a treaty negotiated under the auspices of the World Health Organization. Since being adopted on February 27, 2005 it has since become one of the most widely embraced treaties in UN history and, as of today, has already 163 Parties.

While the US is a party to the treaty we are not bound by it.  Why?  Because the treaty has never been sent to Congress for ratification.  As a result of our lack of action we are in the company of such nations as Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, & Liberia.  As an American who has worked the past 16 years to help smokers quit their deadly addiction to cigarettes I am deeply embarrassed by our failure to ratify the treaty.

You might ask yourself why the US has never ratified the treaty.  You have only to look at the influence of Big Tobacco on the White House and Congress.  The previous administration was deep in the pockets of Big Tobacco.  The Tobacco Industry is a major contributor to the election campaigns of senators and congress person in tobacco growing states.  Over the past several years the White House could have sent the treaty to Congress for ratification at any point in time, but it did not.

The Tobacco Industry has worked tirelessly in the US and elsewhere in the world to dilute and delay any tobacco control legislation.  As always, they are subtle about how they go about doing this. They put on the face of caring about the little guy (the tobacco farmer) or preventing the erosion of personal rights (so-called Smokers’ Rights), but in the end is all about huge corporate profits at the expense of the health of US citizens and hundreds of millions of smokers worldwide.

Article 14 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) states, "Demand reduction measures concerning tobacco dependence and cessation."  While the US has a National Tobacco Dependence Guideline that is a model for much of the world, what we lack is a real national strategy.  States are left to develop their own tobacco control policies with minimal funding from the Feds.  As a result we have a patchwork of substandard policies, legislation, and treatment services.

We have a long way to go in the United States if we really want to prevent nearly a half million smoking related deaths each year.  A first step would be to call your US Senators and Congress Persons and tell them you want the US to ratify the FCTC treaty.

To learn more about the treaty go to http://www.who.int/fctc/about/en/index.html.