Is the Treaty going to harm tobacco growers and countries growers of tobacco?
The WHO FCTC in its preamble recognizes the need to develop appropriate mechanisms to address the long-term social and economic implications of successful tobacco demand reduction strategies. Even with strong tobacco control programmes, consumption will not fall immediately and thus it will not affect tobacco growing countries. It will take a few generations, time that can help a very smooth transition for those countries that are more dependant. The WHO and the World Bank concluded after several studies that even assuming the more optimistic of scenarios of a reduction on smoking prevalence (% of people who smoke), there would be an increase of tobacco demand, due to the increase in the population. For the country’s economy, it is estimated that a reduction of money spent on tobacco would direct the money to other goods, creating other jobs in other industries. The governments should also ensure (and the WHO FCTC recommends) that alternative sources of employment are devised to compen
