The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control: A good idea gone wrong
The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) was agreed in May 2003. As it was slowly pieced together over several negotiating meetings from 1999, the text evolved into a framework for generalising the best of evidence-based tobacco control. The text is largely unchanged, but, like a Christmas tree, it has been adorned with many decorations: guidelines, decisions, awards, technical papers, working group reports, a protocol and so on.
But we have to face the question: Is the FCTC serving the public interest now? The presentation argues that hostility to harm reduction, naïve policymaking on tobacco, and crude hostility to industry mean the FCTC is now doing more harm than good.
Clive Bates was there at the birth of the FCTC as an NGO observer and advocate from 1999 to 2003. He shares his disappointment.
Speaker: Clive Bates
Chair: Konstantinos Farsalinos
Speakers
