Smoke the TPP: How Big Tobacco and "Free Trade" Deals Erode Public Health

[unhappycamper]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/12/13-6



Australia, like many other nations, has attempted to mandate tough labeling laws for tobacco products. But the industry is firing back and critics say the maneuvers are an assault on global public health.

Smoke the TPP: How Big Tobacco and "Free Trade" Deals Erode Public Health
- Jon Queally, staff writer
Published on Friday, December 13, 2013 by Common Dreams

As it turns out, once the general public learns that smoking tobacco can kill you with unusual predictability, most people respond by trying to quit the habit—sometimes successfully, sometimes not—or by never smoking in the first place.

~snip~

Additionally, as governments experienced the health cost savings that could be garnered as tobacco consumption rates fell, they began thinking of ways to assist the no-smoking trends.

As developed nations created more highly regulated systems for the control, advertisement, and sale of tobacco, the industry found itself focused on expanding its business in less-developed nations where education on the dangers of tobacco were less advanced and government restrictions were short of those found in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and other rich countries.

But, according to an in-depth analysis by the New York Times on Friday, as developing nations now try to increase their control over the deadly industry, the large tobacco corporations—citing international trade agreements and various treaties—are using their financial and legal muscle to intimidate governments from adopting those stricter regulatory steps.

[Doctor_J]

1. if the tpp is passed the transnationals will be their own government

They will write and enforce their own laws