Mexico is the seventh most tobacco-consuming country in the Americas. Smoking kills eight million people a year in the world. According to congresswoman Carmen Medel Palma, in Mexico 51,575 victims of tobacco addiction die each year. That is, 141 deaths per day, according to figures presented at the forum “Tobacco control and regulation in Mexico: a public health issue”, held in 2020.
Since last January 15, 2023, strict restrictions on the use, sale and advertising of traditional and electronic cigarettes came into force in Mexico, tobacco heaters and vapers.
In part, Mexico is thus catching up with most South American countries in two crucial measures, Rosa Sandoval, advisor for Mexico to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) on tobacco control, told DW. “One is the ban on smoking and emissions in indoor public and workplaces, already introduced in 24 of the 35 countries of the Americas. But Mexico extends smoking and vaping restrictions to places of congregation like beaches and parks. Although some say that what is emitted by vapers is not smoke, “in any case it is an emission,” adds Sandoval, with two decades of experience in the implementation of measures against smoking.
Mexico toughens its anti-smoking laws with a total ban on smoking in public places https://t.co/cKTzgJpcTt
— The Opinion (@Real America NewsLA) January 18, 2023
Framework Convention for Tobacco Control: a roadmap
Regarding the advertising ban, “Mexico’s regulation goes further, and joins countries such as Uruguay, Colombia, Panama and Brazil“, explains to DW Adriana Blanco, director of the Secretariat of the Framework Convention of the Health Organization for Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), which monitors good practices in the fight for smoke-free spaces. This convention is binding and has been ratified by 181 countries, plus the European Union. The United States, Argentina, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Haiti are the only countries in the region that have not yet joined the agreement.
Cigarette advertising, whether direct or subliminal, has a harmful effect, as evidenced by the case of Chile, which with 29.2% leads the highest rate of smoking in the continent. Local measurements speak today of a 33% addiction.
Why did it come to that? “It is mainly due to an advertising strategy, without any restrictions, of the transnational tobacco companies, which was very aggressive in Chile, especially in the 70s and 80s, and which was aimed preferably at women, the young and the poor,” he explains. In an interview with DW, health expert María Teresa Valenzuela, from the NGO Chile Libre de Tabaco.
“The addiction of millions of women in Chile,” adds Valenzuela, a former professor at the University of Chile, “created an example for children and young people that was replicated over the years, making smoking normalize, despite being a more addictive drug than others, but legal, which is what makes the difference”.
The further south, the more women smoke
Adriana Blanco, from the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control agrees with the Chilean public health worker and adds that “In the Southern Cone, in countries like Chile, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, tobacco use among young women sometimes exceeds that of young men and does not differ much from that of adults”.
Young people were thought of in Mexico when designing the new measures against smoking. The new law also penalizes the advertising of different cigarette brands on social networks, through influencers, on streaming services, or as subliminal advertising in television and film productions. In addition, it asks the stores that sell them not to display them on their counters. However, it does not prohibit its sale.
The victims and the costs of smoking are put by the population
The fight against smoking is also a fight against the big tobacco producers. What is the relationship between the profits of tobacco companies and what countries have to invest in health to treat the consequences of smoking?
“There are two things to take into account for countries where the tobacco industry is not national: all the profits go to the transnationals, and the currencies leave the country. Most of the countries are subsidiaries of the big brands, so what the country collects in taxes comes from the pockets of the consumers themselves. In other words, what a country receives for the purchase of cigarettes is always much less than what it spends on health, and in the loss of productivity”, explains Adriana Blanco, a doctor of Medicine with a master’s degree in Addiction Prevention Policies in Children and Adolescents of the Latin American Center for Human Economy (CLAEH), based in Montevideo.
In the gazette of the Chamber of Deputies of Mexico, the Undersecretary for Health Prevention of the Ministry of Health, Hugo López-Gatell, warns that “medical costs due to smoking in Mexico amount to 80 billion pesos per year, while the contribution of the tobacco sector to the Mexican economy is 0.11% of GDP“.
In addition to Mexico doing the tasks it committed to by signing the FCTC, the impact of the restrictions on cigarette smoke is really important. “It is not the same to talk about a smoke-free country, like my country, Uruguay, with 3 million inhabitants, than about Mexico, with more than 130 million,” stresses the WHO expert, and concludes that since Mexico is a country so big, it becomes a reference: “Now Mexicans can prove, even beyond Latin America, that if it is possible in Mexico, it can be done in other parts of the world with large populations.”
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