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Infostation
| International Trend in Tobacco Control
Framework Convention on Tobacco Control To control the harmful effects of tobacco, the World Health Organization (WHO) works actively to encourage Member States to ratify the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which aims to reduce smoking-included morbidity and mortality by imposing regulations on tobacco products, such as their content, packaging, advertising, marketing, sponsorship, price, taxation and illicit trade etc. The FCTC entered into force on 27 February 2005. For further information on the FCTC, please visit: Indoor Smoking Ban In recent years, many countries and places have enacted laws to prohibit smoking in indoor workplaces and indoor public places, such as restaurants and bars etc. In the State of California (USA), one of the first places where indoor smoking ban was implemented, the Smoke-free Workplace Regulation took effect in restaurants and workplaces in 1995 and in bars, taverns and gaming clubs in 1998. The successful experience of California was then followed by other states. The Clean Indoor Air Act of New York State went into effect in 2003. For further information on tobacco control legislations of the States of California and New York, please visit:
A number of European countries have enacted legislations on indoor smoking ban, among which Ireland was one of the first countries that went smoke-free. On 29 March 2004, all indoor public areas in Ireland, including restaurants and bars became no smoking areas and this legislation was widely accepted and supported. Apart from Ireland, other countries such as Malta, Spain and Norway have also implemented indoor smoking ban. With effect from 26 March 2006, the indoor public areas of Scotland went smoke-free. For further information about the tobacco control legislations of these countries, please visit:
In Asia-Pacific region, the indoor smoking ban legislation of New Zealand went into force in 10 December 2004. It was found in the first anniversary evaluation report that the legislation received major support from New Zealander and has brought positive impact to the economy. Singapore and Thailand has also implemented smoking ban in most indoor public places. For further information about these legislations, please visit:
Evaluation reports on the effectiveness of the implementation of indoor smoking ban that were done by various countries:
Pictorial health warning Some countries and regions have required tobacco packages to display pictorial health warnings, such as human organs that were damaged by smoking or the hazards of smoking to smoker's family. The objective of these warnings is to enhance their visual effects. Australia Department of Health and Ageing, Australia Brazil National Health Surveillance Agency, Brazil Canada European Union
Some other countries such as Singapore, Thailand, Venezuela and Uruguay have also required cigarette packets to contain pictorial health warnings. Packaging and labelling of tobacco productsAccording to Article 11 of the FCTC, each Party shall, within a period of three years after entry into force of this Convention for that Party, adopt and implement, in accordance with its nations law, effective measures to ensure that tobacco products packaging and labelling do not promote a tobacco product by any means that are false, misleading, deceptive or likely to create an erroneous impression about its characteristics, health effects, hazard or emissions , including any terms, descriptor, trademark, figurative or any other sign that directly or indirectly creates the false impression that a particular tobacco products is less harmful that other tobacco products. These may include terms such as "low tar", "light", "ultra-light", or "mild". Some countries have already enacted legislations to regulate the packaging and labelling of tobacco products while litigations were made in some countries. These countries include Australia, Brazil, Ireland and Sweden. For further information, please visit:
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Last Revision Date : 03 July 2007