Anyone who visited Malaysia in the 1980s and who turned on the television set in their hotel room was likely to see more tobacco promotion than they had ever seen before in a half hour of channel hopping. If they were there on public health business, they had an additional shock when they learned that the country had banned tobacco advertising on television. Ministry of health officials would announce this with sincerity, though some of them would admit that there were problems of circumvention. Did these stem from cross border television, which can be so troublesome to a tobacco control leader with less enlightened neighbours? No, the ads were on Malaysian TV, but were not for cigarettes at all, but for those well known but impossible to obtain products such as Marlboro and Kent holidays, or Camel clothing. In those days, no tobacco control advocate’s conference presentation was complete without slides or video clips showing how tobacco companies were exploiting Malaysia and its innocent government.

Saturation tobacco promotion was very much in evidence at the recent Formula One motor race in Malaysia.

USA: Life or Death playing Cards in California, USA produces health promotion playing cards containing health messages targeted at young people. Each of the cards features a different cartoon character alongside a reason not to smoke, or take drugs—Life Playing Cards and Death Cigarette Playing Cards deal with smoking, and Drugs …