Brazil's Efforts to Reduce Cigarette Use Illustrate Both the Potential Successes and Challenges of This Goal

The World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control1 (adopted in 2003), along with the WHO Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases2 (adopted in 2013), set a goal of a 30% reduction in overall tobacco use worldwide from 2010 to 2025. Because cigarettes make up the majority of this use and are arguably the most harmful of tobacco products, they deserve the majority of the attention in this effort. Brazil signed on to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2006 and has carried out its major goals: reducing advertising and promotion of and raising taxes on cigarettes, employing large pictorial labels on cigarette packs, and restricting the use of cigarettes in public places.