The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Smoking is a major cause of death in Morocco, with a high rate of tobacco-associated cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Around 34% of Moroccan men and 1% of Moroccan women aged over 20 are smokers. In 2004, 14.5 billion cigarettes were sold in Morocco. Like many developing countries, the government has privatized Tobacco Industry and sold in 2003 an 80% stake in “Regie Des Tabacs” to International Tobacco Company. But privatization in the tobacco industry raises special concerns for public health and should not be treated like any other state-owned industry privatization. Implications for public health need to be addressed because the privatisation is often followed by increased output, increased consumption of tobacco products. If privatization leads to higher consumption of tobacco products, tobacco-related deaths and disease will increase in future, with associated economic and development costs. Morocco developed a tobacco control strategy, embodied in a law that was enforced in February 1998 and that bans smoking in public spaces as well as tobacco advertisement. But the country needs to adopt implementation texts for the law, in addition to taking more stringent measures to cut smoking habit such as the increase of tobacco taxes and cigarettes prices. In total, appropriate regulatory and preventive measures had not fully been in place prior to tobacco sector privatization. Morocco has signed the WHO convention but has not yet ratified it.