ABLEnews World Desk

                   Moscow Muzzles Marlboro Man

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Moscow--In what many public health specialists in Russia call a long
overdue attempt to address the alarming surge in illness and death
rates in Russia, President Boris Yeltsin has issued a decree banning
all advertisements for tobacco and alcohol products.
   
The ban is to begin as soon as it is published in the official press.
It also includes ads for ubiquitous medical services, from faith
healers and unlicensed doctors.
   
Television, radio, newspapers and magazines will be forced to stop
carrying such ads, and if they do not comply, they will have to turn
over any revenue to the Health Ministry for public education programs.
   
"We have been saying for years that as long as the most popular man in
Russia is the Marlboro Man, we can't even begin to do much about the
wretched health of the nation," said Dr. Galina Perfilyeva, an
outspoken public health expert, who has a radio show on which she
implores people to stop smoking, drink less and eat healthy food.
"This is finally an acknowledgment that something immediate needs to
be done."
   
With death rates unmatched by any nation in the industrialized world
and cancer and heart disease rates rising steeply each year, public
health officials are delighted by the unexpected decree from a man has
said that if something is legal, it should be legal to advertise it.
   
The business community, foreign and local, is as upset by the decision
as the medical community is pleased. With sales dropping at home,
American companies have rushed into Russia, where almost 70 percent of
adults smoke.
   
Virtually all American tobacco companies are competing for a share of
the Russian market, and most have invested in the dozens of cigarette
plants across this country and the other former Soviet republics.
Moreover, more than a third of all vodka consumed in Russia is now
imported.
   
"The biggest loser is the consumer, because this is censorship," said
Bruce Macdonald, general director of advertising at BBDO World
Marketing in Moscow. "We don't allow tobacco and alcohol advertising
on television in America either. But it was a process. The president
did not decide by himself on a weekend to do it."
   
There are almost no laws in Russia on the content of ads, and those
that do exist are hard to enforce. The growth of the advertising
industry, which now takes in more than $1 billion a year, has been
dramatic in the past three years.
   
Previous bans have never worked. The city of Moscow officially banned
alcohol and tobacco advertisements from bus stops, kiosks and
billboards two years ago, but almost no one paid any attention.
Parliament also voted for such a ban in December, although it does not
have the power to do so without Yeltsin's consent.
   
This may be different. Ostankino, the government television station,
said Monday that it would immediately stop showing the ads because
they caused too much "social disruption."

Russia has what some experts consider to be the highest rate of
alcohol consumption in the world. In the Moscow region alone, 14
percent of deaths last year were related to alcohol, and more than
14,000 crimes and more than two-thirds of all killings were committed
by people obviously drunk when arrested.

[Yeltsin Bans Ads for Tobacco, Alcohol/A Boost for Public Health, but
a Blow to US Firms, Michael Specter, San Francisco Chronicle, 2/23/95]

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