What is the 'Framework Convention on Tobacco Control' or 'FCTC'?

What is the 'Framework Convention on Tobacco Control' or 'FCTC'?

Linda Hyder Ferry (Associate Professor, Preventive Medicine and Family Medicine, Loma Linda University School of Medicine) gives expert video advice on: How has the tobacco industry influenced American culture?; How did the 1964 US Surgeon General's report impact the tobacco industry?; How are tobacco control laws changing American culture? and more...

The 'Framework Convention on Tobacco Control,' or FCTC, is a global treaty that the World Health Organization, along with many partner organizations, have encouraged all of their member nations to endorse, to ratify, and to enforce with legislation in each member country that will limit the advertising and promotion of tobacco, secondhand smoke legislation, taxation of weighting, smuggling, and on and on. There's about 15 categories that they encourage every member nation to address appropriately in their country. In 2006, it had received enough support from all their member nations to go into effect, and what we are hoping is that countries that otherwise would not have the public health support rallies within the expertise of their country will be able to follow this wave of global control over the tobacco industries' influence over government so that passive smoking, cost of cigarettes, marketing to children and all of those strategies used by the tobacco industry will not have the same long-term impact 10, 20, 30 years from now that we were anticipating. It's been a tremendous public health success, and in fact it's the first global health treaty that was ever passed by the World Health Organization. It's appropriate because tobacco use is the #1 killer in the world.