Tobacco Smoking in Latin America

Over the past decades, the increasing weight of scientific evidence has pointed to tobacco smoking being a major contributory factor in respiratory and pulmonary diseases. As such, there are enormous social and health costs involved. In the USA, the tobacco industry is facing multiple lawsuits from various sectors, and has made multi-billion dollar settlements already.

The major tobacco companies are global corporations with multinational operations, including in Latin America. Already, several Latin American governments (Bolivia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama) have filed lawsuits against the tobacco companies. In these cases, there are additional complications involved. For one thing, the issue of legal jurisdiction is unclear, as to whether a jury in a rural county in Texas should hear the case of Bolivia (see story). For another thing, there are also Latin American cigarette manufacturers, even if they have seemingly names of USA origin such as Broadway (in Mexico) and Hollywood (in Brazil).

Still, it seems that the first important question must be this: How many cigarette smokers are there in Latin America? The Los Medios y Mercados de Latinoamérica study is a pan-regional research study that covers 18 Latin American countries. In the 1998 survey, the sample respondents were asked about if they had smoked cigarettes within the past seven days. 18.4% of persons 12-64 indicated that they had done so.

Demographic Category/Class	% Smoked in Last 7 Days
Sex Male Female	21% 16%
Sex/Age Male 12-17 Male 18-24 Male 25-34 Male 35-44 Male 45-54 Male 55-64 Female 12-17 Female 18-24 Female 25-34 Female 35-44 Female 45-54 Female 55-64	4% 18% 26% 26% 31% 24% 9% 17% 20% 19% 17% 9%
Educational Level Less than 6 years More than 6, but less than 12 12 years of more	20% 16% 20%
Socio-Economic Level Level A Level B Level C Level D	20% 20% 17% 18%
Geographical Region Argentina Brazil Chile Colombia Mexico Venezuela Balance of Central America Balance of South America	31% 18% 35% 19% 15% 22% 10% 14%
TOTAL	18%

The lawsuits filed against the tobacco industry have focused primarily on compensation and punitive damages, but the negotiations have also involved advertising regulations, especially with respect to the potential effect on the next generation. Each country may draw its own set of rules and regulations, with local variations. For pan-regional cable/satellite television broadcasters who deploy one or several feeds, it is easiest simply to refuse all tobacco advertising rather than deal with the myriad of local regulations. Magazines accept tobacco ads, especially for those magazines which obviously have adult audiences.