News analysis
RUSSIA: PANDORA'S BOX, OR HOLY FOOLS' FLASH MOB?
All articles written by David Simpson unless otherwise attributed. Ideas and items for News Analysis should be sent to: d.simpson@iath.org
Members of the Russian Anti-Tobacco Advocacy Coalition (ATACa) filed requests at the federal prosecutor’s office and in four cities last November for the initiation of an investigation. Earlier in the year, the coalition had asked the ministry of health of the Russian Federation whether tobacco was toxic. It received the usual official confirmation that tobacco products were the only ones of their kind, containing carcinogens, toxins, mutagens, etc and still being sold to the public. The coalition then asked the ministry why tobacco products were sold if they were toxic. Although no reply was received within the 30-day period fixed for replies to inquiries about matters of law, officials did contact the coalition later.
On Russia’s annual “Smoke-Out” (cessation) day, 20 November 2008, five members of the coalition from Moscow, accompanied by others from the four next largest cities, visited the state prosecutor’s office to submit a statement asking for a criminal case to be brought against all tobacco points of sale and all companies producing tobacco products. The basis of the demand was article 238 of the country’s criminal code, which stipulates two years’ imprisonment for those found guilty of the sale or production of goods which do not meet safety criteria, or which cause harm to health. Russian law, unlike that in Europe or the USA, makes no exemptions for tobacco, or for any other goods that might later turn out to be harmful to health after being made available on the market, however widely. The existence of publicly recognised addiction to nicotine, which destroys the free choice argument, takes tobacco products outside civil code regulations, which are concerned only with voluntarily agreed dealings between citizens.
The statements …
