WHO Chief Sees Cigarettes as Drugs
07/29/99
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) called today for
cigarettes and other
tobacco products to be regulated like pharmaceuticals.
Gro Harlem Brundtland told an international conference in Berlin the content of
cigarettes should be subject to the same controls as those applied to food products and drugs.
"The time has now come for concerted regulation of
tobacco products," she said in the text of her speech issued in Geneva.
Brundtland, a former Norwegian prime minister, said agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration should have
tobacco products within their remit
She told the International Conference of Drug Regulatory Authorities that anti-tobacco measures had focused for too long on levying high taxes on
cigarettes and restrictions on advertising and packaging.
EU Cigarettes
