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W.D. Kanter
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P1.05 - Poster Session/ Prevention and Tobacco Control (ID 215)
- Event: WCLC 2015
- Type: Poster
- Track: Prevention and Tobacco Control
- Presentations: 1
- Moderators:
- Coordinates: 9/07/2015, 09:30 - 17:00, Exhibit Hall (Hall B+C)
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P1.05-003 - Dutch Government Taken to Court by 2 Chest Physicians Because of Violation WHO FCTC 5.3 (ID 820)
09:30 - 09:30 | Author(s): W.D. Kanter
- Abstract
Background:
The Youth Smoking Prevention Foundation is taking the Kingdom of the Netherlands to court to end the structural and excessive influence exerted by the tobacco lobby on government anti-smoking policies. The Foundation is calling on the Dutch government to comply fully with the anti-smoking convention (WHO FCTC), which it signed and which is therefore legally binding. One of the most important articles in the convention states that every form of influence by the tobacco industry on policies to deter smoking must be avoided. In the court summons issued, the Foundation offers dozens of examples that show how the government has systematically violated this provision, and even invites the tobacco industry to clarify its position on matters of policy development. 19,000 tobacco-related deaths More than 19,000 Dutch people, half of them younger than 65, die each year as a result of smoking. In addition, an average of 120 children under the age of 18 start smoking every day. Some 60 of them will continue to smoke for the rest of their lives, and 30 of them will die prematurely from the effects of smoking. Smoking is by far the biggest cause of death that could be avoided through prevention. However, the marketing techniques deployed by the tobacco industry are so refined that many youths cannot resist the temptation to start smoking. Moreover, cigarettes are designed to be highly addictive. Children who start smoking end up addicted within weeks. For many of them, the question of ‘free will’ no longer applies: they are unable to stop smoking without help. Numerous national and international laws and conventions make it a duty of the Dutch government to protect the health of its citizens from a serious cause of illness like tobacco. With as many as 19,000 tobacco deaths every year, the government has an obligation to do all in its power to combat the massive scale of premature fatalities. And it should certainly prevent minors from starting to smoke, because almost nobody starts after they turn 18. Despite all this, the Dutch government has failed to implement measures that could be very effective in achieving results: imposing much higher taxes on tobacco and greatly reducing the current number of over 60,000 points of sale. Instead, the government listens to the tobacco industry, whose effective lobbying continues to successfully obstruct measures to discourage tobacco use.
Methods:
not applicable
Results:
ongoing lawsuit.
Conclusion:
The lawsuit is ongoing. Our foundation has had a lot publicity in all national media (television ,newspapers) As a chest physician working in an oncology center mainly treating patients with lungcancer it is very powerfull to start a lawsuit against the state to prevent lung cancer. We are making progress: we are at the table of several Ministries (finance, health department) to discuss the firewall protocol against the lobby of big tobacco. We use social media and patients advocates to make our message even stronger
