# Scandal in Mexico



## fbb1964 (26/3/21)

https://thevapingtoday.com/scandal-in-mexico/

*Scandal in Mexico*

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25 de marzo de 2021



Foto: Balam Wong
_In addition to the arbitrariness in the legislative process, it was discovered thanks to the document metadata that a prediction of the Mexican Parliament that proposes bans on vaping was written by an Argentine lawyer advising the Campaign For Tobacco Free Kids, an anti-vaping NGO financed by Michael Bloomberg._

Civil society organizations tend to have a quantitative and qualitative influence on states and play an important role in the social, sociocultural and political foundations of democratic societies. They promote initiatives necessary for development and well-being, agendas for discussion, social participation and bring the interests of citizens closer to state decision-making processes, breaking the monopoly of governments and creating an environment of diversification in the centrality of power.

However, there are situations in which the influence processes of these entities are not focused on consensus. On the contrary, they are part of an exclusionary pressure strategy that legitimizes some kind of power.

For many years, the Campaign For Tobacco Free Kids (CTFK), a US transnational organization with strong operations in Latin America, has based its actions on a clear and manifest incitement for governments to establish public policies based on their spectrum of interests and within their ideological field. To do this, he establishes a routine of influence that imposes his ideas and desires on other opinions and wills without seeking dialogue, in an evident struggle for power.

The lack of appreciation for dialogue with those who think and want differently allows us to identify a political action that is oriented to a forced consensus. In the specific case of smoking and its alternatives, for them organized civil society, science, positive experiences that contradict their discourse and, above all, consumers, have neither voice nor vote.

After the Philippines, Mexico

In August last year, the Commerce, Industry and Health committees of the Philippine Chamber approved a legal text to regulate the entire chain of vaping in the country. Two months later, the activities of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were suspended after a high-level public employee of the Philippine FDA admitted in parliament that they received grants from the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (known such as The Union) that receives funding from the Bloomberg Initiative in exchange for promoting certain policies against non-combustible nicotine products, such as e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products.

In an article published in August 2020, Dr. Roberto Sussman, professor at the Institute of Nuclear Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, had already drawn attention to the oppressive influence exerted by the universe of organizations related to Bloomberg Philanthropies in the policies on the healthiest nicotine delivery products in low- and middle-income countries.

What happens in Mexico is no different, as shown in the article “Censorship and exclusion: the real situation of vaping in Mexico” by Dr. Sussman himself published last December. A few weeks ago, without any kind of participation from civil society in the proposal, the United Commissions on Health and Economy, Commerce and Competitiveness of the Chamber of Deputies presented a prediction with reform proposals and additions to the provisions of the General Law for Tobacco Control.

Originally proposed by the deputy Ruth Salinas Reyes, from the parliamentary group of Movimiento Ciudadano, in April of last year, the text proposes, among other things, the prohibition of the import, distribution and sale of vaping products, the introduction of standard packaging in cigarettes and the ban on smoking and vaping in parks, beaches and almost any public place.

In addition to the deputy Ruth Salinas Reyes, stand out in the prohibitionist unilateral initiative the deputies Arturo Escobar and Vega of the PVEM, José Salvador Rosas Quintanilla of the PAN parliamentary group, Ximena Puente de la Mora of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, Juan Martín Espinoza of the Partido Movimiento Ciudadano and, distinguished, Carmen Medel Palma, from Morena.

The Red Hand of Campaign For Tobacco Free Kids

But the absence of dialogue with civil society in the discussions prior to the preparation of the proposal and the restrictions and prohibitions imposed are not the aspects that draw the most attention to the document. The legislative process itself occurred under arbitrariness. The legal text presupposes the consensus between all the parliamentary initiatives, but in the case of the prediction of the twelve initiatives, only those that advocated the prohibition were taken into account.

In justifying her proposal (“Ban-regulation of novel and emerging nicotine and tobacco products”), Carmen Medel Palma cites the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids without decorum. The deputy literally transcribes the decalogue of the document “When to prohibit is the best” of The Union, which induces low and middle income countries to ban vaping instead of regulating it. Countries where, according to the WHO, 80% of the world’s combustible tobacco consumers are found.

On March 12, the Mexican activist and communicator Antonio Toscano presented on his Facebook channel the information that the downloadable document of the prediction contained something worthy of note. In the metadata of the official document, the Argentine lawyer Gianella Severini appears as the author of the PDF, who is nothing more and nothing less than the legal advisor for Latin America of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK) and Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI) for the “Promotion of public health policies for the prevention of obesity and tobacco control.”

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