NOVEMBER 3, 1997

Mosley under attack

THE powerful anti-tobacco lobby launched an attack on FIA President Max Mosley last week, claiming that his comments suggesting that tobacco bans increase smoking were distorted. The International Union Against Cancer drew attention to a recently-published study it has done in Norway, Finland, New Zealand and France which concluded that in three of the four countries smoking among young people decreased after the ban, while remaining stable in France. In Norway the study claims male youth smoking dropped by 15% with a fall of 12% in Finland and 2.1% in New Zealand.

A separate report from the same organization, called "The effectiveness of banning advertising for tobacco products", concluded that children are three times more sensitive as adults to tobacco advertising.

Mosley had complained about the lack of reliable research into the effects of smoking bans and said that the FIA was not prepared to "allow hundreds of millions of dollars to be taken away simply because someone says there must be some connection between consumption and advertising".