UN urges global action to stem deadly toll from tobacco use

( June 01, 2011) The United Nations on Tuesday, urged governments to drastically step up their efforts to curb the use of tobacco, a drug that kills nearly 6 million people worldwide every year. Marking “World No Tobacco Day” the UN stressed that policy-makers already have the tools they need to combat consumption of this dreadful drug.
It called on all countries to sign up to the World Health Organization, WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which has accumulated 173 States Parties, since it was opened for signature in 2003. The United States, Indonesia, Argentina and Ethiopia, are among the few remaining countries not to have become States Parties to the treaty. The Treaty spells out a series of measures aimed at reducing use of tobacco control, such as restrictions on sales to minors, the introduction of taxes on cigarettes to reduce demand, and the implementation of comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising.
“We have the treaty. It’s effective. Let’s use it,” Douglas Bettcher, Director of WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative, told the UN News Centre. “The measures are not expensive. All we need is political will,” he added. Tobacco is estimated to have killed about 100 million people last century and could kill as many as 1 billion more this century unless action is taken.