Globalization and Tobacco

This chapter reviews the evolving economic and social system sustaining the growing tobacco epidemic in order to identify how globalization is affecting the industry, governments, and tobacco control advocates. It is divided into four main sections. The first section recalls key historical events that led to the worldwide prominence of tobacco use and the global rise of tobacco-related death and disease. The second section examines scientific evidence regarding the health effects of active and passive smoking and reviews the globalization of the public health response to the tobacco epidemic. The third section describes the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) negotiating process and final treaty text. The fourth section analyzes some of the remaining major challenges resulting from working within a global system, in particular, those challenges associated with developing coherent domestic and international policies and the permanent need to anticipate the unintended consequences of national and global regulations. The chapter concludes by identifying new directions and resources for global tobacco control and predicting some of the main challenges that lie ahead.