Tobacco Control Policy: Strategies, Successes, and Setbacks

Award winning title! Selected as a 2003 ‘Notable Government Document’ by the American Librarian Association (ALA) and GODORT (Government Documents Round Table). Currently, there are over 1.2 billion tobacco users in the world, most in developing countries. Once a problem primarily in high-income countries, disease and death from tobacco use has increasingly become a burden for developing countries as well. The tobacco epidemic is one of the leading causes of preventable death and disability in the world today. However, mitigating the devastating health damage caused by tobacco use is made especially difficult by nicotine’s powerfully addictive properties, low prices of tobacco products, and the constant, often subtle reinforcement of social norms and encouragement to smoke through billions of dollars of advertising each year. This book contains the stories of six countries–Brazil, Bangladesh, Canada, Poland, South Africa, and Thailand. These countries, selected to provide global geographical representation, are in different stages of the tobacco epidemic and the strength and history of their tobacco control policies vary considerably. Each has achieved notable success in tobacco control policy-making, basing advocacy and policies on sound research and evidence. ‘Tobacco Control Policy’ relates the strategies, success stories and setbacks in developing tobacco control policies in order to assist people grappling with similar issues in other countries. This book provides a collection of experiences in diverse economic, social and political situations which demonstrate the varied and important roles played by activists, health practitioners, policymakers, researchers, NGOs, politicians, and the press.