World NO Tobacco Day, May 31, 2010..

May 5, 2010 - World No Tobacco Day 2010 will be designed to draw particular attention to the harmful effects of tobacco marketing towards women and girls. It will also highlight the need for the nearly 170 Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control to ban all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship in accordance with their constitutions or constitutional principles.

In February, WHO chief Margaret Chan said that developing countries were the "new frontier" for tobacco marketing. "If Big Tobacco is in retreat in some parts of the world, it is on the march in others," she said in a speech on the fifth anniversary of an international convention on tobacco control. "In these countries as elsewhere, girls and women are a market with attractive and lucrative growth potential, and they are likewise being targeted," Chan said. In developed countries, tobacco companies have seen their marketing restricted or banned and sales are falling as public health campaigns and tight rules on smoking in public places hit profits. (Tobacco use in poor countries on the rise, says WHO chief, JamaicaObserver.com, 2/27/2010)

Women comprise about 20% of the world's more than 1 billion smokers. However, the epidemic of tobacco use among women is increasing in some countries. Women are a major target of opportunity for the tobacco industry, which needs to recruit new users to replace the nearly half of current users who will die prematurely from tobacco-related diseases.

World No Tobacco Day 2010 Posters..

Reference: World No Tobacco Day 2010 Theme: Gender and tobacco with an emphasis on marketing to women, WHO, 12/19/2009.

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