Tobacco legislation in Ukraine: advertising and other issues. - Abstracts of 10th World Conference on Tobacco or Health, Beijing, China, 1997, p. 86.

TOBACCO LEGISLATION IN UKRAINE:
ADVERTISING AND OTHER ISSUES

Konstantin Krasovsky

Alcohol and Drug Information Center, Kiev, Ukraine

Tobacco advertisement was formally banned in Ukraine since 1992 but the enforcement of the was very low. The issue was to clarify in the law on advertisement. The tobacco and advertising lobby persuaded to the parliament commission on mass-media to present a law only with some restrictions on tobacco advertising. The lobby was financed by the Philip Morris and other TTC. They even prepared a document called «Questions and answers on banning the tobacco advertising in Ukraine prepared for the members of parliament in Ukraine by the Associations of independent advisers for the development of the Ukrainian tobacco industry»? Which stated that in case of banning Ukraine loses $400,000,000. But the Association never existed and the document was prepared by the Philip Morris. When the law was finally discussed in the parliament in March 1996 the health lobby was stronger and the parliament voted for banning. But the tobacco lobby spent immense money for anti-law campaign and managed to persuade the President of Ukraine to issue a veto. The final decision adopted in July, 1996 was compromise: tobacco advertising is banned on radio and TV but allowed in printed media and billboards. At present health lobby works on enforcement of the some positions of the law concerning the «social information» and health warnings. We use our experience of legislation work on advertising for other legislative acts such as increasing tobacco taxes with allocation of a portion of them for prevention work; restrictions on smoking in public places, health warnings on tobacco packs, etc. The exchange of experience with other countries on tobacco legislation would be valuable for all sides.