A local initiative, started in the Netherlands, for initiating tobacco control measures as a cornerstone of effective cancer prevention strategies.
The most important element of effective prevention is by far the need to curb smoking. Tobacco control should be high on the agenda of governments and those which do not do enough should be brought to trial based on the declaration of human rights: It is the right of every citizen to be protected against products that harm health. Addiction is not a choice and especially not when perpetrated by tobacco industry marketing policies.
Internal documents clearly show that the tobacco industry actively works on getting their fellow citizens addicted:
Get them before they are 21, because otherwise we’ve lost them.
It is the governments’ responsibility to restrict tobacco. For this reason, and in order not to blame the smokers themselves, we plead to forbid the sale of tobacco rather than forbidding the act of smoking.
Do not forbid smoking, forbid the selling of tobacco!’
This way the guilt is placed with the tobacco industry and the governments, rather than the unprotected citizen. Inspire2Live has written a roadmap for bringing governments to trial.
We are currently looking for ways to raise money for this and as soon as we have sufficient funds, we will start.
