While attending the 11th World Conference on Tobacco or Health from Aug. 7 in Chicago, I was very impressed by the enthusiasm of participants seeking tighter controls on smoking. The first conference, hosted by the American Cancer Society, was held in New York in 1967. The latest conference was hosted by the same society and supported by the American Medical Association and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. About 4,500 people took part in the conference, up from 2,500 at the Beijing conference in 1997 and the 400 who attended the first conference, as antismoking campaigns have spread worldwide.

Participants in the Chicago conference included government health workers, researchers, clinicians, public-policy officials and tobacco-control advocates. Also present were U.S. and Canadian prosecutors and lawyers who were handling litigation against tobacco companies. The gathering of government and private-sector officials and academics discussed smoking problems from political, economic, social, medical and educational viewpoints.

One of the main topics of discussion was the prevention of tobacco smuggling. In today's borderless world, international cooperation is essential to control smuggling. However, Japanese participants were mostly clinicians and included no lawyers or representatives from the Health and Welfare Ministry or other government departments. This shows the lack of Japanese interest in tobacco problems.