UICC World Cancer Congress 2006

As the first president of the National Cancer Center (NCC) in Korea, I have introduced several anti-smoking policies since its inauguration in 2000. Furthermore, as of the non-smoking policy proclamation, all staff members agreed that NCC must stand as an exemplary of the anti-smoking activity. Accordingly, we pledged to abstain from smoking and had the NCC non-smoking declaration ceremony on December 2002. As smoking scenes on TV or in newspapers may promote smoking, especially among the young, I proposed the presidents of three major broadcasting companies and twelve newspaper companies to prohibit those scenes or pictures on their media. Soon after, all such restriction decisions were made by June 2004. I also received signatures on the non-smoking resolution from both national trade unions, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions and Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, and six major Korean medical organizations.

As I further expanded the campaign to the Minster of Defence and National Police Agency, they decided not to sell duty-free cigarettes to the army from 2009 and the police from 2008. Furthermore, I proposed to designate a non-smoking area in government buildings, such as the Presidential Office and the National Assembly Building, as a model to the public. Accordingly, the National Assembly Building was declared as a non-smoking area on January 2004, and this act was followed by the Presidential office on January 2005. My six-year efforts have realized its ultimate goal on 22 February 2006 when I filed a petition to the National Assembly of Korea, along with the former National Assembly Speaker K.Y. Park and the former President and 2000 Nobel Peace Prize winner D.J. Kim.

In the petition, we called for a complete ban on the manufacture and sales of tobacco products in next ten years. Our petition was then joined by other petitioners, composed of 155 leading figures in various social areas. The purpose of this bill is to protect the people from harmful effects of tobacco use through prohibitions on their manufacturing, importing, exporting, and selling. To support our petition, I published a book containing 542 pages of text entitled, ‘Banning the Manufacture and Sale of Tobacco Products: The Problems and Answers' with 8 co-authors on January 2006 I and Dr. Zatonski formed Tobacco Free World Alliance (ToFWA) on 11 November 2004 to promote a law which bans the manufacture and sales of tobacco products in every country within next 10-15 years.

To promote such antismoking activities in Asian countries, I then organized the first meeting of Asian National Cancer Center Alliance (ANCCA) that was held in NCC Korea on September 2005. The directors of nine Asian National Cancer Centers participated in this meeting. On the other hand, in the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) meeting held in Lyon, France on September 2004, I proposed to encourage prohibition of the manufacture and sales of tobacco products in every country. Lyon Declaration was then made on October 2005, which included pledges of the directors of Cancer Centers to persuade governments to reduce the consumption of tobacco products in their countries, and ultimately to reach the complete ban on tobacco products.

There has been a huge recognition on negative effects of smoking in Korea within a relatively short period of time. Such an achievement seemed to have been possible because of the effort that NCC has constantly put into promoting the anti-smoking activity.