‘HEALTH EQUALS WEALTH’

He had announced in April that he was suffering from cancer as a result of years of heavy smoking although he had quit for the most part of 20 years, with a short relapse after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. Also succumbing to lung cancer recently was 82-year-old US actress Barbara Bel Geddes, known to millions of television viewers around the world as Miss Elly, matriarch of the Ewing clan on the hit soap opera Dallas.

However while the stories about the ravages of cancer are many and the damage this illness inflicts upon the health and productive capacity of populations worldwide is well known, governments across the globe always tend to find themselves in something of a catch 22 position when it comes to dealing with the tobacco industry. Governments receive taxes from the sales of cigarettes and other tobacco products. Tobacco companies are also heavily involved in the sponsorship of significant sport and cultural activities within the respective territories where they do business.

One needs only to remember that up until a few years ago, the West Indian Tobacco Company (WITCO) was the annual sponsor of Trinidad and Tobago’s Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year Awards. Only this month, Britain enforced a ban on tobacco advertising on all sporting events in an effort to dissuade its pervasive effect on young people. This is a very courageous step as tobacco marketers pump large sums of money into sports. Last year, Trinidad and Tobago became a signatory to the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHOFCTC), which is considered the world’s first public health treaty. Doing the honours for TT were Health Minister John Rahael and Foreign Affairs Minister Knowlson Gift. As a first step towards meeting its international obligations to the WHOFCTC, Rahael said smoking would be banned in certain areas.

While such pieces of legislation are often viewed with high suspicion and often battled tooth and nail by the international tobacco industry, there is a growing awareness by tobacco companies of how their product is perceived as a danger to health and how they factor this into their day to day business. Then there is also the inescapable fact that many nations in the world rely on tobacco farming for their economic well being and the move towards a total ban of smoking in public places cannot be executed by a single swift stroke of a sword.

Many people argue that given the public health costs and global trends, it may not be long before tobacco use is restricted permanently and tobacco goes the way of the dinosaur. Whether or not this happens somewhere down the road, the reality is that there are no easy answers to dealing with a complex issue such as the tobacco industry and cancer.

As we strive to find the answers to this issue that would allow all involved to emerge as winners, the poignant words of former West Indies cricketer Bernard Julien who was diagnosed with cancer, "You don’t have to pay to learn."

In the final analysis however, if people insist on smoking they have that right.