Tobacco and Public Health - TCSC Indonesia

Chapter 39
A brief history of legislation to
control the tobacco epidemic
Ruth Roemer
The protection and promotion of the health and welfare of its citizens is
considered to be one of the most important functions of the modern
state (Rosen 1958).
In no sense is this more true than with respect to the role of governments in combating
the world-wide tobacco epidemic.
This chapter seeks to trace the evolution of tobacco legislation in the second half of
the twentieth century, from 1950 to 2002. Our object is to analyse the progress made, the
deficits still existing, and the challenges facing the countries of the world in the future.
The world has suffered many epidemics from the plagues in the time of Justinian in
543 and in the Middle Ages, from smallpox, malaria, and many infectious diseases, to
the contemporary HIV/AIDS epidemic, but the tobacco epidemic is the first one in
which the cause is not bacterial or viral but corporate—a multinational industry bent
on profits from selling its lethal product.
The history of modern tobacco control legislation can be divided into five periods:
(1) early legislation during the period 1890–1960; (2) legislation enacted in the 1960s
and early 1970s in response to the proven connection between smoking and disease
and regulating specific, categorical aspects of tobacco promotion and use; (3) the first
comprehensive laws in the 1970s; (4) the decade of the 1980s when additional countries
enacted legislation, both categorical and comprehensive; and (5) beginning in the
1990s the wide enactment of comprehensive legislation or greatly strengthened laws
dealing with multiple aspects of tobacco production, marketing, and use.
Early research and reports
The modern story of laws to control the promotion and use of tobacco began with the
science base for legislation. In 1938, Raymond Pearl documented dramatically the
association between tobacco use and shortened duration of life, but his work failed to
activate the health authorities (Pearl 1938). In 1950, the research of Wynder and