printer version

16.11.11

Think Tank Tobaksfakta hosted a presentation in partnership with our Parliamentary Advisory Board for Members of Parliament on 9th November 2011. The event entitled “A Tobacco-Free Society? Children’s right to health – A Story from Tobacco-free Finland 2040” featured a key-note presentation from Antero Heloma of the National Institute of Public Health in Finland about the recent legislation passed in Finland aiming to be tobacco-free in 2040. The Seminar also featured two additional presentations; one by Sara Sanchez Bengtsson which looked at selected articles from the WHO FCTC from a child’s perspective and the second by Margaretha Haglund and Göran Boëthius which examined phasing out tobacco in Sweden.

The presentation from Finland summarized the process of how the legislation evolved and how it will be implemented over time. According to the presenter Antero Heloma, the legislation was drafted by a workgroup which developed a menu of comprehensive tobacco control measures including sales to minors, cessation, smoke-free public places and a ban on advertising at point of purchase. In presenting a draft to politicians, the workgroup was pleasantly surprised that the political leaders marked an end date to tobacco use to be included in the legislation. This date became 2040. Presently, the legislation is rolling out where for example, the advertising ban at point of purchase will start January 2012.

The presentation by Sara Sanchez Bengtsson highlighted the importance of the Preamble of the WHO FCTC where Article 24 of the Convention for the Rights of the Child and other international Conventions and Covenants were the foundation for the entire WHO-FCTC. The presentation then examined articles 5.3, 8, 12 and 13 from a child’s perspective with actual examples from Sweden. Article 5.3 on Tobacco Industry Influence flagged Swedish Match’s Corporate Social Responsibility Program named Solstikan which awards a grand prize each year to a recipient working to advance children and the aged issues. Related to Article 8 on environmental tobacco smoke, Sara highlighted the links to increased smoke-free homes when legislation on smoke-free areas is implemented. For Articles 12 and 13 on information and marketing respectively examples of pictures on tobacco packages point of purchase advertising were emphasized.

The final presentation was by Margaretha Haglund and Göran Boëthius and aimed to provide a picture of how Sweden can become tobacco-free and the public support behind this. They presented data from Tobaksfakta which reported that more than 40% of the population believe that it is important to define a date when tobacco products will eventually be phased out. These numbers are higher among younger people in Sweden. They also presented data analyzed by public opinion and political party preference. Interestingly the Moderate Party is significantly less in favour to innovative tobacco control measures such as bans at points of advertising and maintaining the EU ban on snus compared to their voters. Other issues such as Sweden’s role to living up to the WHO-FCTC and smoke-free work hours showed similar rates between the public and politicians.

The seminar was attended by Members of Parliament and those that work supporting the Parliament. Information about the seminar was summarized on www.tobaksfakta.se and sent to all Members of Parliament as a follow-up. One key result of the seminar is that the information presented about the EU Directive and voter statistics are being presented by one Member of Parliament to a meeting (18/11) about tobacco control policy. Another key result was that the press release promoting the event was read by over 200 sources. In the near future Think Tank Tobaksfakta will be planning follow-up initiatives to this event which could include an additional seminar, a communications plan and/or stakeholder meetings.

For more information please contact sara.sanchez@tobaksfakta.se.

Antero Heloma and Henrik Ripa